CV and mad panic behaviour

[Baggers]

One final point.  I am still gobsmacked, that we dont have a standardised national approach, and Scott Morrison and company are very absent from the running of the nation.

I would have thought that the steps to contain corona virus was a national concern, and sending an email about ADF support was likely a very half arsed measure to document what should have been a directive for the state to implement and one that clearly defined what was the expectation in the quarantine hotels.

Before anyone jumps on me for this, at our hospital accreditation is to do with quality, standards and models of care.  I would think quarantine would have similar checkpoints for everyone to hit, irrespective of public vs private security, whether or not things are done X, Y and Z, and the fact we dont have sound quarantine procedures for someone carrying an infectious disease during a pandemic is ridiculous.

Its just one more step along the way where our politicians have been found wanting.  Dan and co are not absolved in what I am saying here either.  Its just one more step along the way where I feel our national government has let us down.  If anything it speaks for how disconnected our government is from our state.

With you on this one, 3 Leos.

I've banged on about pandemic handling being centralised to Canberra control but as GTC rightly indicated there are Constitutional considerations... but amendments to Constitutions are very easy to organise.

ScoMo has been Mr Nice Guy with the states and this is to be expected from someone who has been carved out of marketing. He has said some really good, supportive things...

I think the disconnection goes deep. There is now an exposed disconnection from the medical and scientific realities of a pandemic by governments and business alike. I can only repeat myself by saying we need a strong strategy for this and future pandemics that call on science and the military for guidance and containment. AND far greater investment in hospitals to better cope with any sudden high numbers AND thorough, strong public education.

I also believe the disconnect you speak of is embarrassingly apparent within government departments... maybe we've been too comfortable for too long, or our entire system of who gets into government is just sub-standard.

[madbluboy]

I don't like Scott Morrison but unlike our premier he has done a great job through this crisis.

[kruddler]

I don't like Scott Morrison but unlike our premier he has done a great job through this crisis.

by diverting all international arrivals to Melbourne and washing his hands of it all?

Or by his governments inability to properly run aged care residencies so as to not see an excessive number of old people die from Covid?

[ElwoodBlues1]

by diverting all international arrivals to Melbourne and washing his hands of it all?

Or by his governments inability to properly run aged care residencies so as to not see an excessive number of old people die from Covid?

CoVid hopefully is going to help the aged care system improve given all the bad publicity, residents were passing away of neglect and poor resourcing anyway, the public were just not aware of the numbers .A Covid outbreak is not too dissimilar to a gastro outbreak in terms of taking lives as far as aged care goes.
Every Government is the same they just turn their back on the elderly in those homes, its all too hard and too expensive to improve  conditions...you cant close all the bad ones down as there would be nowhere for the residents to go. Hospitals dont want them and they get shunted off to rehab units who shove an NFR sign on them and stick them in palliative.
Its a disgrace and not much better than turning them into biscuits like that movie " Soylent Green"..

[Micky0]

I don't like Scott Morrison but unlike our premier he has done a great job through this crisis.

He’s hidden behind the premiers, taking potshots here and there to labor states but otherwise done. Whole lot of sweet fa. Guy is an embarrassment to Australia.

[madbluboy]

Can't blame Scomo for Dictator Dan's failures.

[LP]

He’s hidden behind the premiers, taking potshots here and there to labor states but otherwise done. Whole lot of sweet fa. Guy is an embarrassment to Australia.

I think they are all in a no win scenario.

FWIW, I though ScoMo did OK in the fires, has been a bit bland though-out the later COVID situation but he did great the first time around getting the States and Feds all around a table with the National Cabinet. The problem is the National Cabinet seems to have now fizzled as they all start taking pot shots at each other and have started picking each others pockets.

I suspect the real problem for them all is that things are not likely to go back to normal, it will be COVID normal from here on for a long time and the public will start to get complacent and or defiant. I stated early on, there is a hint of anarchy embedded in the denialists protests, and it's likely to surface further when many realise they might never get back to 100% the way it was.

[LP]

Can't blame Scomo for Dictator Dan's failures.

I suppose technically we can actually blame the Feds for the whole lot.

Health related to things like a COVID pandemic is a Federal responsibility, it has been for a long long time, the Feds took the responsibility off the States I think almost 18 years ago! I'm pretty sure it was John Howard that got the ball rolling in 2003 as a response to the original SARS outbreak, the Feds wanted a Unified National approach to this sort of problem.

But they are all complicit, at the moment they are trying to come out on top by pecking at each others bones!

[Baggers]

CoVid hopefully is going to help the aged care system improve given all the bad publicity, residents were passing away of neglect and poor resourcing anyway, the public were just not aware of the numbers .A Covid outbreak is not too dissimilar to a gastro outbreak in terms of taking lives as far as aged care goes.
Every Government is the same they just turn their back on the elderly in those homes, its all too hard and too expensive to improve  conditions...you cant close all the bad ones down as there would be nowhere for the residents to go. Hospitals dont want them and they get shunted off to rehab units who shove an NFR sign on them and stick them in palliative.
Its a disgrace and not much better than turning them into biscuits like that movie " Soylent Green"..

Well said.

I have some first hand experience here, and it's a mixed bag. I'm referring to the fact that my father is in aged care and has been for 3 years. He's 86 and has emphysema - 70 years of smoking. Still drinks a half bottle or so of whiskey a day, but apart from his lungs, all other organs are 'normal'... yep, even his liver - must be the Danish blood, seems to like alcohol (I rarely touch the stuff though). And mentally he's as lucid at 50 years agol

As the medical power of attorney I have plenty to do with the aged care home (BaptCare). The first thing I notice whenever I go into the place is that I can't wait to get out. Depressing. Many of the staff seem to be recent arrivals to Australia and this is an easy employ avenue, sorry if that sounds racist/xenophobic (it aint) but when I am gleaning info on my old man and English is not the first language of the person helping me we immediately have a communication problem... some of these people are just impatient and even rude - they obviously don't like the job. Looking after elderly humans requires special people, very special and a few where the old man is are just bloody brilliant in terms of saint like patience, joyfulness and a genuine deep interest/care. Mixed bag overall.

The overwhelming thing that comes across when walking around the home is the cost cutting. Very little effort re special initiatives to interest and engage the old folks, only the dead basics - many still have their minds and love a chat. More like 'shut them in their rooms, give them their meds, turn on their TV (baby sitter) and leave'. In some respects, crims in prison are engaged more with meaningful tasks.

The meals would be enough for some of us to neck ourselves. Bland and dead basic. And I know it aint easy feeding large numbers of people but (here he goes again about the Navy) the feeds we had in the Navy, whether land base or at sea, we bloody fantastic and plenty of variety. More cost cutting.

It is sad to see how our elderly are accommodated in these aged care homes (care? FO!). Baby sitting with the bare essentials until they cark it seems to be the underlying philosophy, and in the mean time... cha-ching! Most, if not all, of these folks have worked hard, paid their taxes, contributed and then this is how they get to spend their finals years? Shunted away and forgotten. Some cultures keep their aged working/engaged/useful until they drop... better way to go out. But some folks need expert daily medical care so being with the family is unrealistic but they could be mentally engaged with some activities (not fckn basket weaving!!). Then there are those, like my old man, who are just so disagreeable they couldn't live with family.

The Minister for Aged Care should spend a week, unannounced, in one of these homes... in fact, all pollies should spend some time in one - unannounced of course so the home doesn't get to bung on a show.

The entire system needs an overhaul with an emphasis of meaningful daily activities, better meals and employing only those who really are suited to aged care.

[madbluboy]

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinio...aed14c389f

One down, seven to go. The resignation of hapless health minister Jenny Mikakos is a start but by no means the end of a reckoning that should see every single member of the Crisis Cabinet, including the Premier, stepping down in disgrace.

Joining them should be the well remunerated department heads who oversaw gross incompetence on a scale unparalleled in the history of this state.

Counsel assisting the hotel quarantine inquiry, Ben Ihle, summed up the calamity when he said: “The failure by the hotel quarantine program to contain this virus is (to date) responsible for the deaths of 768 people and the infection of some 18,418 others ... One only needs to pause and to reflect on those figures to appreciate the full scope of devastation and despair.”

Dan Andrews says the buck stops with him. Why should Mikakos take full responsibility for the quarantine program when it was Jobs Minister Martin Pakula’s department that selected the security companies, giving the bulk of the work to a questionable outfit that was not on the government’s approved list of contractors?

Pakula’s department gave Unified Security a $44 million payday primarily because the identity politics-obsessed far Left Andrews government was more concerned with one of the company owner’s Indigenous heritage than the ability of the firm to carry out their work safely.

The Premier and his team of incompetent senior ministers and bureaucrats may soon have more to worry about than the findings of the Coate inquiry. The prospect of facing prosecution for industrial manslaughter charges grows stronger by the day.

Indeed, it was the fear of facing criminal charges that saw so many struck with selective memory loss, according to commentator Robert Gottliebsen.

“The Victorian politicians and public servants caught in the hotel quarantine saga do not have amnesia but rather have a genuine fear that any admission of liability will cause them to be prosecuted under Victorian law,” he wrote.

“Some of those involved in the quarantine fiasco were actually part of the plotting that designed one of the most vicious industrial manslaughter acts in the Western world.”

Members of the Victorian government and bureaucracy could be prosecuted under occupational health and safety laws that carry prison terms of up to 25 years. Never has the expression “hoist with his own petard” been more apt.

Labor’s industrial manslaughter laws came into effect on July 1 this year after passing the upper house in late November. According to WorkSafe Victoria: “... for the purposes of workplace manslaughter, conduct will be considered ‘negligent’ if it involves: a great falling short of the standard of care that a reasonable person would have taken in the circumstances, and a high risk of death, serious injury or serious illness.”

Just as terrifying for the bureaucrats and responsible ministers, under the act negligent conduct also includes “a failure to act” such as failing to adequately manage, control or supervise employees, or failing to “take reasonable action to fix a dangerous situation, where failing to do so causes a high risk of death, serious injury or serious illness.”

Under Victorian law, any citizen can request WorkSafe, and then the Director of Public Prosecutions, to prosecute individuals for breaching the state’s OHS laws.

On Tuesday WorkSafe Victoria was sent a letter by Ken Phillips, executive director of Self Employed Victoria, requesting a number of individuals including the Premier, ministers Pakula and Lisa Neville, Mikakos, and 16 top public servants, a number of departments and Victorian Trades Hall Council, be prosecuted under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004.

The public servants named in the letter include Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton and deputy Annaliese van Diemen, Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Chris Eccles, State Controllers Jason Helps and Andrea Spiteri, Health and Human Services secretary Kym Peake, Jobs, Precincts and Regions secretary Simon Phemister, Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp, former police chief commissioner Graham Ashton and incumbent Shane Patton, plus several other bureaucrats alleged to have failed in their duty to provide a safe worksite.

Phillips believes that the evidence heard at the Coate inquiry shows that the government caused the second outbreak and thus is culpable under the Act.

The next step will see WorkSafe chief Colin Radford, a former staffer of Steve Bracks, John Brumby and Tim Holding, either undertaking prosecutions or writing to Phillips to explain why the matter is not proceeding. If the latter occurs, Phillips can request the DPP to prosecute. Expect to see this process drag on well into 2021.

IN SHORT: Medical experts say wearing a mask when outdoors and socially distanced from others has no health benefits but Dan Andrews knows better. The Premier admits his mask edict goes beyond health advice, yet he expects Victorians to be masked even when alone at the beach. Another daft captain’s call.