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Victorian aged care home hit with class action
An aged care facility that is understood to have caused 205 infections and been linked to multiple deaths has been hit with a class action.
Tony Zhang
Sebastian Agnello, the son of a 92-year-old woman who died of a coronavirus infection acquired at Epping Gardens Aged Care Facility will be the lead plaintiff in a class action and has filed the first Supreme Court writ against the home in Melbourne’s north.
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The class action is brought by Carbone Lawyers, which is representing around 30 families with relatives who have either died at the home or who were living there until recently.
Mr Agnello’s legal claim, for stress and anxiety caused by his mother’s death at Epping Gardens, is against Heritage Care, which operates four Melbourne homes.
This comes after a major law firm told Lawyers Weekly there is a “serious risk” of industry-wide class actions against Australia’s aged care sector.
It has been reported up to 205 infections and multiple deaths have been linked to Heritage Care’s Epping Gardens aged care facility.
It is understood that at least 20 residents there have died after contracting a coronavirus infection, although the death toll could not be confirmed.
Carbone Lawyers partner John Karantzis said the families his company represented had suffered “stress and anxiety as a result of the actions of the management of Epping Gardens. This should not happen again.”
“We fight for the rights of the vulnerable who have been affected by mismanagement, greed and incompetence. Such conduct is abhorrent and unacceptable in a civilised society,” he said.
Mr Agnello said in his writ that the company had failed to place his mother in isolation to protect her from a COVID-19 infection.
Mr Agnello’s mother died on 28 July, a week after the Department of Health and Human Services first acknowledged an outbreak at the home.
Epping Gardens, Mr Agnello said in the writ, had allowed staff and residents to not wear personal protective equipment even though they’re aware there was a pandemic.
The aged care home had also allowed workers and residents to “move freely within Epping Gardens when there was a risk of spreading contamination and contracting a COVID-19 infection”.
Tony Carbone, managing director of Carbone Lawyers, said there was evidence of neglect, inadequate staffing and poor training at the aged care centre even before the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The writ also alleges Epping Gardens allowed staff from other aged care facilities to enter the home without self-isolating, and permitted a “baby shower” on 16 July and a party at the home on 18 July – even though entry was meant to be restricted to essential workers and residents.
Within four days, the first case of COVID-19 was discovered in the facility. A staff member was infected and so was a resident.
Mainstream media then reported, within six days, the virus had spread to 60 residents and 22 staff, including all six who attended the baby shower.
Epping Gardens’ parent company, Heritage Care Pty Ltd, which has nine for-profit aged care homes across Sydney and Melbourne, is directed and owned by multimillionaire aged care moguls Tony Antonopoulos and Peter Arvanitis.
