For over a decade, the state government vacillated about whether or not to privatise the Oakden Older Persons Mental Health Facility.

Once the 2007 accreditation crisis had passed, however, it never reached the top of the ‘to do’ list. Meanwhile, investment in facilities and staffing were endlessly postponed pending a decision. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• the dangers of decay while waiting for strategic directions
• whether an organisation is ever really too broke to buy a $15 piece of equipment;
• some tactics for unsticking things.

We also discuss an excellent listener question from a manager in social services policy who is thinking of getting out.

Intro and outro grabs from the RN Background Briefing episode A Failure to Care: The Oakden Nursing Home, featuring Alma Krecu and Lorraine Baff, whose fathers were patients at Oakden. 

You can find the full ICAC Report into Oakden here, and the Chief Psychiatrist report here.

Now for some appropriately bureaucratic disclaimers....

While we have tried to be as thorough in our research as busy full time jobs and lives allow, we definitely don’t guarantee that we’ve got all the details right.

If you want rigorous reporting on Robodebt, we recommend the work of Rick Morton at the Saturday Paper, Chris Knaus and Luke Henriques-Gomes at the Guardian, Ben Eltham at Crikey, Julian Bajkowski at The Mandarin, and of course, the Robodebt Royal Commission itself.

Please feel free to email us corrections, episode suggestions, or anything else, at thewestminstertraditionpod@gmail.com.

Thanks to PanPot audio for our intro and outro music.

'Til next time!