LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Magnetic Island Community Members

I am writing to clarify a number of misconceptions and rumours doing the rounds on social media about Magnetic Island Community Care withdrawing from the delivery of funded aged care services. Management Committees of MI Care are appointed by financial members of the organisation each year at an Annual General Meeting to make business decisions in the best interests of our clients. Over the past 12-18 months it became increasingly obvious to the current Management Committee that the organisation was in trouble, from both a compliance and a governance perspective and that this would be exacerbated by planned future changes to the aged care sector.

It is an Aged Care Quality & Safety Commission requirement that all aged care providers be audited by the Commission every three years. In April 2024 the Committee became aware that the organisation had not been audited for 8 years. In the absence of a Commission audit the Management Committee decided to employ an independent compliance auditor to conduct a full week-long Aged Care Commission style audit to ensure that the organisation was meeting compliance requirements or that we had strategies in place to address any non-compliance. The result of this audit was a 27-page non-compliance report indicating that the organisation was 78% non-compliant against all 80 Aged Care Commission Standards and had clearly been non-compliant for several years. The auditor took a developmental approach in guiding the CEO, the CHSP Coordinator and the HCP Coordinator through what needed to change.

The changes required were very significant and were met with strong resistance from the office leadership team. General feedback was that the clients loved MI Care and that everything was going very well just as it was. The Management Committee asserted that every item in the 27-page non-compliance report needed to be addressed. Several months went by with very limited progress on our compliance journey and with only token efforts being made.

Around this time the Management Committee undertook a strategic planning process. Inherent to our future success was our ability to build a workforce with shared values around integrity, performance accountability and transparency. An analysis of the changing demographic on the island clearly identified future challenges in managing the complex health needs of an ageing cohort (80+) which will increase significantly by the year 2030.

Early analysis of service delivery, challenges and complaints confirmed a complete lack of clinical governance, clinical oversight and clinical care within the organisation. This represented high risk for the organisation, and indeed for our clients, and it became increasingly evident that it was essential for the organisation to be managed by a Registered Nurse with aged care experience and that we employ at least one other clinical staff member to address our non-compliance in this area.

The committee made the difficult decision to make the CEO position redundant and to attempt to recruit a Registered Nurse with significant aged care experience. This proved a difficult undertaking. In all fairness, the exiting CEO did point out that it would be difficult to recruit for this new Community Service Manager position. This did not change the real need for the organisation to be led by a Registered Nurse if MI Care was to become compliant and viable.

The Committee eventually used a recruitment agency for temporary relief and as a result of that person (Registered Nurse with extensive aged care experience and knowledge of policies and legislation) coming on board, we identified a range of practices that needed to be ceased immediately, and others that required extensive long term negotiation with the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (DHDA) and the Department of Social Services (DSS). This was required in order to address inappropriate allocation of hours of service to existing clients without following due process to ensure there was funding to back up those allocations. These inappropriate processes had been operating for years and collectively they created significant ethical, governance, and compliance dilemmas for the organisation.

In light of these practices there was an increased focus on individual accountability and behavioural standards in the workplace. These practices when addressed internally were not well received by the relevant staff members and some of our existing staff chose to leave the organisation rather than adapt to legislatively required processes, practices and respectful behaviour in the workplace. None of the staff members who resigned were required or asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This is a false allegation on social media. No staff members were dismissed or asked to leave. These resignations left the organisation with no choice during the 2024/25 financial year other than to bring in relief staff from Townsville (expensive) and appointing a few new staff from the island. We went from an organisation of 12 staff to an organisation of 5.

We also discovered that some of our Home Care Package clients had been receiving services and purchases specifically excluded in our funding contracts, leading to a report being lodged with the Fraud Department of DHDA outlining significant misuse of public funds over many years. None of this was the fault of our clients. Examples included very expensive full bathroom renovations, purchase, maintenance and repair of air-conditioning units, purchase of phones and other electronic equipment – all of which are very specifically excluded in our funding contracts (past and present). To date, we have not had a response from the Fraud Department.

Although we have made some progress to date on our non-compliance against the standards required by the Aged Care Commission, we are still profoundly non-compliant, and with the knowledge that new aged care legislation and the new Support at Home Program were to be introduced on 1 November 2025, the Management Committee in consultation with government, our specialist aged care accountants, our independent financial auditors, and with advice from a grant funded report on financial viability from Ernst & Young, came to the realisation that the organisation was not financially viable. Government agreed with the Committee’s decision and have been working with us over the past few months to transition our client base to alternative, well-established, fully compliant aged care service providers to ensure continuity of high-quality aged care service delivery. Government identified possible organisations for this purpose and negotiations and communications across the stakeholders commenced.

Throughout this recent process we have written to our clients and financial members about why this is happening and how this is happening, and we have assisted clients to understand and recognise this necessary change. Please be aware that the decision to exit aged care service delivery is not reversible. Please also be aware that the MI Care property is owned by the Department of Communities and they have determined that the property must transition to a like organisation, i.e. a not-for-profit charity delivering aged care services. Although we have no instruction or formal determination from the Department of Communities at this stage it seems most likely that Comlink (which is now providing services to all our HCP clients and will likely take over service delivery to the majority of our CHSP clients) will occupy the property in the future.

We have not provided all of the above information to the general public in the past as we believe that we are answerable and accountable to our clients, members and staff first and foremost, as well as our funding bodies. We were also required and directed at times by our partnering groups, such as our funders, not to discuss issues, challenges or possible solutions with clients or members until final decisions have been made. The majority of staff who worked at MI Care previously are good people who were trying to do the right thing for the benefit of our clients. Unfortunately, office leadership over a long period of time did not do the right thing by them, not because they were intentionally choosing to do the wrong thing, but simply because they seem not to have understood or interpreted how to follow legislation, standards, and funding contract requirements in a clinical care service environment.

The volunteer Management Committee has done their absolute best to rectify past mistakes but, in the end, and with input from our funders and other stakeholders, deemed it necessary to protect our ageing population by handing service delivery over to compliant, well-established and recognised providers. There has been much disinformation on social media and even inferences of financial malpractice by the Management Committee (very dangerous and potentially libelous inferences), but the Management Committee has made a deliberate choice not to engage via social media as our priority is to our clients and our financial members, and they have received appropriate levels of communication in writing, and some in person during this process.

The decision to write this letter to the editor was made in an effort to address some of the misinformation and mistrust being generated via social media. Members of the Management Committee will not be standing for reelection at the next AGM (scheduled for the week beginning 15 December – not New Year’s Eve as someone has falsely claimed).

We are hoping to receive our draft financial audit reports in the very near future and once those are received we can set a date for the AGM, as is standard, and prudent practice. The purpose of the AGM will be for financial members to accept or reject the financial audit statement for 2024/25 and to elect a new Management Committee (if nominations are received prior to the AGM – you can request nomination forms from the office). If no new committee is elected, financial members will need to vote on a resolution to wind up the legal entity of Magnetic Island Community Care Association Inc. If no new Management Committee is elected and the resolution to wind up the business is passed, then the current Management Committee members have volunteered to ensure that whatever is necessary to wind up the organisation is completed and will oversee the distribution and/or disposal of the assets of the organisation.

We will have a professional Barrister facilitating the AGM together with our Company Secretary who will present the audited financial statement for 2024/25.

Regards

Management Committee

Magnetic Island Community Care