A cleaner at an Illawarra aged care facility, one of 19 to lose their job, says she feels like she has been stabbed in the back by an employer that had made her feel like family. Irene, who chose not to provide her surname, has worked at Marco Polo Unanderra Care Services for the past six years. Now, she has no job. Cleaners and laundry workers at the aged care facility have been “left high and dry” after none of them picked up jobs with the outsourcing company contracted to take over their work, according to the Health Services Union (HSU). “I’m disappointed because when I first started at Marco Polo I was told, and [it was] drilled in when we used to get our payslips, that we are a part of a family,” Irene said. “I did my best for them and then getting a letter saying that we are terminated or I’m not wanted here, it’s a bit disappointing to me, it’s like a stab in my back.” Irene spent most of her life at Dubbo, in the state’s central-west, before she packed up and shifted to the Illawarra with her husband. She later applied for the aged care cleaning job. “I was happy to be a part of Marco Polo and [for] their family to be my family and the residents to be part of my family,” she said. “Because of them, I had a job. It’s the residents who, at the end of the day, pay my bills, not the management.” HSU NSW secretary Gerard Hayes said Marco Polo had shown “complete disregard” for its workers and the Fair Work Commission, given the move to cut staff was made while a dispute over the matter was still being heard. Mr Hayes said some of the affected workers had been employed for 10 or 15 years and worked closely with the residents. “They may be cleaning … but the thing is they’re looking after people in their home environment,” he said. “These are not hotels we’re talking about, these are aged care facilities and so a cleaner in an aged care facility will also have a human interaction with people.” Marco Polo is set to open a new 168-room facility in Woonona later this year. Mr Hayes said the cleaners should have been offered work there, but have instead “been left high and dry”. The HSU is considering its remaining legal options to help the sacked workers.
September 9, 2016
Defence Health Ltd is defending a s.394 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy) lodged by an ex-staffer (Nally).
September 9, 2016
Moonta Health & Aged Care Inc is facing a s.394 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy) filed by an ex-staff member (Maggi).
September 8, 2016
Two SA Health staff have been disciplined in the past three months for unauthorised access to patients’ records. It is understood the access was done in error rather than maliciously, which would have cost them their jobs. It follows three SA Health staff being sacked in the previous three months for snooping, bringing the tally to five people terminated for spying over the past year. SA Health now reports instances of people caught inappropriately accessing patient records each three months.
September 8, 2016
A carer found guilty of raping an intellectually disabled woman and filming the attack has shown no remorse, the Adelaide District Court has heard. The man, in his 50s, had been the woman’s informal carer via an arrangement made with her father when the offences happened in November 2013, the court was told. The filming and attack happened under the guise that the young woman was being instructed about sex, it heard. Judge Sydney Tilmouth said a prison sentence was inevitable when the case returned to court in October.
September 8, 2016
The Health Services Union and Adventist HealthCare Limited are embroiled in a s.739 (Application to deal with a dispute) before Fair Work Commissioner McKenna in Sydney.
September 8, 2016
Plans to close 39 beds at the Royal Adelaide Hospital are on hold while SA Health explains its thinking to the nurses’ union. The beds were to be closed in coming months with the transfer of their elderly patients to aged care. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation State secretary Elizabeth Dabars has received an undertaking from SA Health that nurses will be consulted about the beds but admits the closure may ultimately proceed.
September 8, 2016
Australian Comfort Group Pty Ltd is contesting Sampson’s s.394 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy).
