![]() “The full truth has been hidden from us.” ![]() “Myself and the other families affected, we are still finding out things that we weren’t aware of and it makes us angry,” Vasilakis says. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian Spiros Vasilakis’s anger is still raw one-and-a-half years after his mother, Maria, died of Covid at St Basil’s. The coroner will examine how St Basil’s management and staff prepared for Covid, their response when it hit, the timeliness of information provided to staff, residents and families, whether the state and federal governments coordinated their response to the outbreak appropriately, and the adequacy of the replacement workforce deployed to St Basil’s, among other issues. As the outbreak spread throughout dozens of aged care homes, pressure mounted on the aged care sector and federal government to reveal how some $13bn in taxpayer funding, along with millions in new funding for Covid-19, was being spent to benefit residents. They will be called to give evidence during the inquest’s final week.Ī Guardian Australia analysis of the 10 aged care homes worst affected by coronavirus in Victoria, conducted in September 2020, found that three were controlled by two large companies, which between them received more than $1.45bn in government funding over the past two years and paid out dividends to their shareholders totalling $77m. She’s dead’.”ĭuring an August hearing held ahead of the inquest, the court heard the St Basil’s facility manager, Vicky Kos, and chairman, Kon Kontis, had declined to take part in investigations into the tragedy. “We had to stop them in their tracks and say: ‘Hey, we know where our mum is. Two days later, a staff member called him and his sister to say their mother was alive and well at the facility. Towards the end of that period, the church was funding the lavish lifestyle of its newly appointed Archbishop, including the purchase of a $6.5 million Sydney apartment with harbour views.His mother died on 23 July. In the past eight years, St Basil's paid more than $22 million in rent and fees to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese while receiving federal government funding.Ī commercial real estate agent told Background Briefing this was double the rental market rate. ![]() The homes include St Basil's in Melbourne, where 45 residents died in Australia's deadliest COVID outbreak. To the extent any readers understood the story in this way, the ABC apologises to Archbishop Makarios for any hurt or offence experienced.Ī group of taxpayer-funded aged care homes funnelled $31 million back into the coffers of one of Australia's largest churches, an ABC investigation has found. ![]() Editor’s Note: The ABC wishes to clarify that this story did not intend to suggest that Archbishop Makarios had personally funnelled money from St Basil's to the Greek Orthodox Church or that any action on his part negligently caused the deaths of the 45 residents at St Basil's.
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