St Basil’s Home for the Aged in Victoria fined $150,000

St Basil’s Home for the Aged in Victoria was convicted after pleading guilty to a single charge of failing to maintain a safe working environment and handed a $150,000 fine in the County Court on Tuesday morning.

The Faulkner not-for-profit facility was charged by the workplace regulator WorkSafe after 45 residents died from Covid-related complications in the space of a month during 2020.

The deaths at St Basil’s are the subject of an ongoing coronial inquest and a separate class action lawsuit has been launched on behalf of some families.

Handing down the $150,000 fine, Judge Trevor Wraight said that while many residents died, the case brought by WorkSafe was “limited to its failure to adequately train its employees”.

“The evidence reveals the company was cognisant of its need to protect residents and staff,” he said.

“In my view St Basil’s was well aware of the risk … here there were weaknesses in the system that resulted in five of its employees not receiving appropriate training.”

The first confirmed case of Covid came on July 9 and, by July 15, dozens of cases were identified when all staff and residents were tested.

Between March and June 2020, the aged-care home organised five training sessions for staff from external medical experts and worked to update its policies and procedures for dealing with Covid.

However, five staff members did not attend any of these sessions and not all staff working at the facility understood the appropriate measures, the court was told.

Judge Wraight said the failure represented, in his view, a “relatively serious breach” of workplace safety laws.

He accepted the facility had taken steps to prepare for a Covid outbreak and, in the five years since, had continued working to ensure the failures could not occur again.

WorkSafe Chief Health and Safety Officer Sam Jenkin said the penalty reflected that training was “business critical”.

“The tragic events at St Basil’s were a heartbreaking reminder of why health and safety matters, and our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of those impacted,” he said.