Private operator made old people suffer, politicians looked the other way
Old people who are malnourished and dehydrated. Untreated wounds and inadequate pain management: The report by a commission set up by the Ombudsman’s Office reads awful and describes the real, life-threatening conditions in the nursing home in Salzburg. This is now also leading to the resignation of the competent provincial social councilor.
The abuses became public after an unannounced inspection took place on April 21, 2022. This was preceded by a complaint from the residents’ representatives to the Ombudsman’s Office, in which they complained about the lack of staff and care. The nursing home is operated by the private company SeneCura on behalf of the state of Salzburg.
Deputy Governor Heinrich Schellhorn (Greens), responsible for the social sector, had long been aware of the conditions in the senior citizens’ home in question. Almost a year earlier, during a previously announced inspection on May 4, 2021, the state home supervisory authority found that the minimum standards according to the Salzburg Care Act were not met at that time. In fact, the home supervisor subsequently made recommendations for quality improvement and granted the senior citizens’ home several uncontrolled inspection visits from December 2021.
These visits confirmed the malnutrition of some residents, as well as unexpected medical attention. However, the grievances were not formally recorded. On the contrary: as recently as April 2022, just a few days before the Ombudsman’s Office had taken a picture of the situation on site, the state’s home supervisor denied all staff or nursing shortages.
Did the Salzburg state government want to cover up its control failure?
However, the auditors of the Ombudsman Board saw things differently. “During the examination procedure of the Ombudsman Board, it could be clarified without a doubt that the supervisory authority had received indications of nursing deficits through external complaints or its own observations even before the commission’s visit,” says the written irregularity statement by the Board of the Ombudsman Board.
Even if Provincial Councilor Schellhorn is persistently trying to put the incidents into perspective, there is no doubt about it: the Green Social Provincial Councilor was informed about the lack of care. According to his own statements, Governor Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP) had known about the terrible conditions for months.
Social Provincial Councilor Schellhorn will have done his best
When the public prosecutor’s report on the inhumane conditions reached the public on September 8th, Schellhorn, the district councilor for social affairs, reflexively denied any failure, referred to the increasing number of supervisory visits and tried to deny responsibility. Everything that was possible was done. In connection with the report by the Ombudsman, Schellhorn spoke of a snapshot.
However, the chronological sequence suggests a completely different truth: The residents of the retirement home must have suffered for at least a year and may still do. When asked whether he would resign as a personal consequence, Schellhorn told ORF: “Of course not.”
But resignation of Social Provincial Councilor Schellhorn
Then, on September 23, came the about-face, Schellhorn could no longer be held back and was to be replaced at noon by the town councilor Martina Berthold, like her Report Salzburg news.
The legal options have not been exhausted
Schellhorn did not have an answer as to why the legal options had not been exhausted. In the final analysis, if the minimum standards were proven to have been undercut, the license to operate the home could even have been withdrawn.
With the exception of a written recommendation and increased checks, there were no consequences. Ombudsman Bernhard Achitz sees the reason for the control failure both in the imprecisely determined law and in the fact that the state government felt that it was insufficiently responsible.
“There are no settled standards in Salzburg, which is goal-oriented care. Secondly, when quality defects were found, they said: You just have to improve, but you meet the minimum standards,” Achatz told the Salzburger Nachrichten.
The opposition demanded consequences
Both opposition parties, the SPÖ and the FPÖ, demanded personal consequences. The Salzburg SPÖ state party chairman David Egger also demands the immediate disclosure of all records of the state care supervisory authority and announced a series of applications and inquiries: “The first step must now be to put an end to the suffering in the SeneCura home. In a second step, a new care law is needed that regulates the minimum standards in care in a new, unequivocal and humane way. Heinrich Schellhorn should ideally take the third step himself.” By this Egger means the resignation of the deputy governor and leader of the Salzburg Greens.
The future of the private nursing home is uncertain
Even if the state government continues to withdraw from the position that the legal minimum standards in the SeneCura senior citizens’ home have always been complied with and that there was no further need for action, the state has now informed the private home operator after the scandal became known, on 13 September per notice of conditions issued. If these are not met, a closure is in the offing. The occupancy of the dormitory has to be reduced from 63 to 50 residents within four weeks.
The ball is also passed on by the state government to the other home operators, especially the city, which operates several senior citizens’ homes. The city of Salzburg had already contributed to the relief in July and taken over nine residents in municipal senior citizens’ homes in order to relieve the private operator.
The city of Salzburg is helping out
At that time, nothing was known about lack of care, only about staff shortages. The responsible social councilor Anja Hagenauer (SPÖ) has already announced support. In a corresponding special meeting of the social committee, it was decided to provide more places in the home within the framework of the limited own capacities. “We have long waiting lists for our municipal senior citizens’ homes ourselves, but we will do our best to ensure that as many affected people as possible have a safe home. We see it as our moral duty to help. However, we can neither relieve the state government of its responsibility nor solve the problem.”
The SPÖ assumes the state’s responsibility for the care system
Meanwhile, David Egger locates the next political declaration of capitulation in the manner of the state government: “The residents are not a bankrupt estate, this is about human lives.” The Salzburg SPÖ leader calls for the orderly closure of the private nursing home. The state should at least temporarily ensure the management of the retirement home until a new operator or another solution is found. Other federal states, such as Lower Austria, would show that it is also possible to run residential homes for the elderly on a permanent basis. Because one thing, according to Egger, would also be confirmed by this case: “The care system and services of general interest in general have lost nothing in private hands.”
Private care operator also internationally criticized
When SeneCura was commissioned to manage the senior citizens’ home in Salzburg-Lehen in 2012, it was a non-profit company. However, the SeneCura Group has been owned by the listed French healthcare company Orpea since 2015. A look at France also shows devastating care conditions in several homes there. The care group is criticized for trampling on hygiene, staff and care standards in the interests of profit maximization.