Lyndoch Living CEO still missing in action after 200 days

Carol Altmann – The Terrier

It’s 200 days since the plug was pulled on Lyndoch Living CEO Doreen Power and we still don’t know if Ms Power remains on the payroll, remains “on leave”, or why she disappeared so rapidly in the first place.

Ms Power’s position within Lyndoch is one of many, many unanswered questions that still hang over our community owned aged care home and which we will continue to pursue – one by one – until we have all the answers.

We will continue to pursue these answers because we have a right to know, particularly when – under the direction of Ms Power and a complicit board – Lyndoch has suffered its greatest crisis since it was started by the community more than 60 years ago.

This crisis has touched every corner of Lyndoch, from the care of elderly and vulnerable residents and retirees, to the care and wellbeing of the staff, to its financial viability, and its reputation.

So many people have been left traumatised.

It’s a long, slow road back and we all want to see Lyndoch survive and succeed, but that doesn’t include giving a free pass to those who sat at the top and steered Lyndoch into the iceberg.

The focus now is on accountability and demanding full and truthful information.

So let’s start at the top.

Ms Power, for all intents and purposes, is a public servant.

I am reliably informed that her total salary package (salary, car, super) is around the $310,000 a year mark, so she is one of the most highly paid public servants in Warrnambool.

If Ms Power has been “on leave” for 200 days, she is still drawing on this salary package…for doing what, exactly?

As this is public money – the equivalent of around $1000 a day – we have a right to know.

It’s not good enough for Lyndoch to keep rolling out the line that Ms Power is on leave and we must respect her privacy.

The latter is not a problem, but we want to know what Ms Power is doing for her salary, is she suing Lyndoch, is she fighting to come back? Or is she actually in the Bahamas on an extended holiday? I doubt it.

I’m hoping to shed some further light on the CEO’s status later this week.

This is the beginning of my second, deep and slow dive into Lyndoch where I will follow all the breadcrumbs back, because it’s astonishing that despite all that has happened, all that has been uncovered and reported and confirmed, not one person has been held to account, accepted responsibility, or apologised to the people of Lyndoch and the wider community.

Not one.

This seems to be a worrying trend.

A Royal Commission in Brisbane into abuse within a disability service commented last week that:  “The board … has issued no public statement or statement to staff regretting the failures of the past and acknowledging responsibility. The board remains largely unchanged.”

“What seems to me to be striking … is nobody seems to have been held accountable,” Commissioner Ronald Sackville said, in a report on the ABC.

Sound familiar?