Name flesh disease rest homes

The Green Party is calling for the three rest homes at the centre of the flesh disease controversy reported in the Dominion Post today to be identified. "

“The rest homes that have been infected with flesh eating bacteria need to be named. People have a right to know what is going on in our rest homes so they can make informed decisions about which ones to use,” said Green Party Health Spokesperson Sue Kedgley.

The Green Party has a long standing campaign to improve the standard of aged care in New Zealand. A key aspect of this is the need for transparency about what is happening in the sector as it is currently difficult to identify how safe individual rest homes are and what level of care is provided.

This presence of necrotic fasciitis (flesh eating bacteria) in these rest homes has again highlighted the need for greater honesty and openness about what is happening in aged care in New Zealand.

“The Government has announced that it will introduce spot checks on rest homes that will be made publicly available – so why are the rest homes with this horrific infection being kept secret?

“This latest horror story from the aged care sector reinforces there are deep seated problems that need to be addressed. These problems include lack of staff to patient ratios, lack of training, poor wages, extremely high staff turnover and inadequate resourcing in many aged care facilities,” said Ms Kedgley.