Federal Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy conceded fatal flaws in the government’s response to aged care during the second wave of COVID-19 infections in Victoria. Mr Murphy, who was chief health officer until mid-year, told the Senate COVID-19 committee said that some deaths could have been avoided had the government set up its aged care response centre earlier this month. He said “if the public health response had been more prompt we might have avoided some scale of the outbreaks in Victoria”.
The Greek community has been particularly affected with at least 44 deaths from St Basil’s, 36 from Epping Gardens Aged Care and 12 from Our Lady of Grace (Panagia Megalohari).
He said “if we’d had prior warning the public health response may have been compromised, that’s something that might have prevented some of the spread amongst facilities by responding more quickly” but was not able to say what proportion of deaths could have been avoided.
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“As we’ve said on many occasions, once you have widespread community outbreaks, aged care outbreaks … unfortunately deaths, particularly for people who are very frail and close to end of life, are inevitable,” Mr Murphy said.
“But largely with the benefit of hindsight and in responding with a response centre, we may have been able to prevent some of some of the spread.”
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More than 600 people have died in aged care facilities during the pandemic. The federal government funds and regulates Australia’s aged care sector. Nonetheless, the federal government has argued that Victoria’s state government bears the responsibility because of the high community transmission which resulted in infections entering convalescent homes.