Dominion Post newspaper cited for Aged Care story

Wellington-based newspaper Dominion Post has misled its readers by publishing the headline “Flood of rest home complaints” the New Zealand Aged Care Association says.

The Australian-owned Dompost’s front page headline “Flood of rest home complaints” is obviously aimed at providing the reader with a false impression that more people were making complaints about quality of care in New Zealand’s rest homes.

“This is a clear example of the Dominion Post not letting the facts get in the way of their story,” says NZ Aged Care Association Chief Executive Mr Martin Taylor.

The same figures that were released to the Fairfax-employed journalist, were provided to the Aged Care Association, and in fact show the opposite is true and complaints about rest homes are actually falling.

“These figures indicate that the number of complaints about aged residential care have been consistently dropping over the last four years. A more accurate headline for Fairfax would have been Rest Home Complaints Decreasing,” Mr Taylor said.

Mr Taylor said it is also worth putting these “complaints” into perspective.

“Every year about 40,000 elderly receive care in an aged residential care facility from 35,000 caregivers and nurses. This means in 2012 one person in every 300 in care made a complaint” said Mr Taylor. “It is also worth pointing out that a complaint is just that a complaint until it is investigated.”

The table below sets out how many complaints were upheld since 2009.

“This means one person in every 1000 has made a valid complaint about aged residential care in 2012, and this year so far, only 38 complaints nationwide have been upheld,” Mr Taylor said.

“One case of poor care delivery is one case too many and I wish every one of the 40,000 elderly all had their expectations met and that all caregivers never made a mistake. But we are dealing with human beings and sadly mistakes are inevitable.”

Mr Taylor said. “What we have to do is minimise these mistakes and one upheld complaint for every 1000 residents per year indicates we are on the right track.”

“The reality is despite misleading media headlines all of the facts and figures show New Zealanders can rest assured that the aged residential care sector does not have systemic quality of care issues and the Ministry of Health are doing a good job in regulating the sector”, he said.

ENDS

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