A recent report from specialist emergency physician Dr Ian Norton was handed to an inquest into the deaths of residents, who passed away during the second wave in July and August 2020.The five-week inquest, which began on Monday, heard that Dr Norton labelled a lack of co-ordination between state and federal departments and other agencies as “preventable — even given the number of outbreaks in Victoria at the time”.In a document to the court, Dr Norton said he was unaware of any planning by federal government agencies for multiple aged care coronavirus outbreaks, despite experiences overseas.He also highlighted a decision by chief health officer Brett Sutton to replace all St Basil’s staff with a commonwealth workforce, despite it being dismissed by a worker as a “shocking idea”.An eight-day delay between the first positive case and the testing of staff was also pointed to as a root cause for the deadly cluster.The inquest began with a memorial to the 50 residents who died in the second wave, with their names read out and photos beamed to the court.State Coroner Judge John Cain asked the dozens of people sitting in the court to stand as a “mark of respect” as the name and photo of each person was beamed on to a screen.St Basil’s continues to be investigated by Worksafe for suspected breaches of the health and safety act.Worksafe lawyer Chris Young QC said the watchdog was not currently probing the Victorian Department of Health.A five-week inquest probing the catastrophic handling of a coronavirus cluster that led to 50 deaths at St Basil’s retirement home will be launched on Monday.Christine Golding, the daughter of late resident Efraxia Tsalanidis, will give evidence at the inquest, which will hear from 60 witnesses including family, St Basil’s staff, heads of state and federal government departments, medical experts and outbreak managers. Professor Brett Sutton will give evidence on Nov 24.However, the Professor whose official sign-off led to the standing down of the whole St Basil’s workforce was not listed in documents as the state’s CHO.He was instead described as a Clinical Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Alfred Hospital.An earlier hearing was told a staff member working at the Fawkner retirement home returned a positive test on July 9, 2020, but colleagues were not told for four days.While the Victorian department of health was notified, the Commonwealth did not receive the information until days later, causing a massive delay in bringing on a surge workforce.Meanwhile, the virus rapidly spread through St Basil’s.In a bid to stop the rise in cases, Prof Sutton and Dr Finn Romanes stood down the whole of St Basil’s staff.Replacement agency nurses – the most experience having graduated just two years earlier – later reported going from “crisis to crisis”.Infected residents were taken to hospital suffering dehydration and deconditioning, their families fearing that their lack of strength meant they were unable to fight off the virus.Of the 117 residents who lived at St Basil’s, 50 died during Victoria’s second wave, with 45 of the deaths being attributed to Covid-19.St Basil’s residents
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