Amicus Community Services Ltd was sentenced in the Melbourne County Court today after earlier pleading guilty to two charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The organisation was fined $350,000 for failing to ensure that persons other than employees were not exposed to risks to their health or safety and $20,000 for failing to notify WorkSafe immediately after becoming aware of a workplace incident.
The court also issued an adverse publicity order requiring the organisation to publicise the offence, its consequences and the penalty imposed and notify the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.
In May 2021, an Amicus carer was tasked with active overnight monitoring of 39-year-old Jo Dwyer, a client with multiple disabilities who received independent living support in her Eaglehawk home and experienced regular epileptic seizures while sleeping.
The court heard that during the night, the client suffered a seizure and fell from her bed onto a crash mat, triggering an audible alarm designed to alert staff - however the carer did not respond to the alarm.
Video footage of the room showed the client appeared to stop breathing about 25 minutes after the fall and that no one entered the room until more than seven hours later, when a relieving shift worker found her unresponsive on the floor.
The organisation did not report the incident to WorkSafe until January 2022, after an investigation was commenced following a request from the client's family.
The court found it was reasonably practicable for Amicus Community Services to reduce the risk to the client's health and safety by:
- requiring carers to perform and document a bedside check of the client's breathing and colour for 1-2 minutes at least every two hours or when the seizure mat alarm sounds; and
- providing information, instruction and training to workers to complete these checks, and requiring workers to sign-off on monitoring requirements before their first unsupervised active overnight shift.
WorkSafe Acting Chief Health and Safety Officer Barb Hill reminded employers that occupational health and safety applies to everyone in the workplace.
"The law is clear, if you're operating a workplace, you must do so in a way that ensures you don't risk the health and safety of anyone in that workplace, including clients," she said.
"Sadly, this devastating incident has cost the life of a vulnerable person who deserved and should rightly have expected their health and safety to be prioritised by those entrusted with her care."
