ESTIA Foundation Gladesville - Investigation
We will be running an investigation into the ESTIA Foundation of Australia – Gladesville. Taken from their website, “The word Estia means hearth or warmth.” Stay tuned to see how this translates to the hearth or warmth of one of their clients whom has Downs Syndrome whose mother recently died. I’ll be reporting on this in the next day or two and the reader can make up their own minds if the NDIS funding that ESTIA receives for this client has an influence on their decision making process. We will also see how ESTIA, when in receipt of a complaint, relies solely on the interview of their client with Downs Syndrome and no other witnesses!
We elected to post this matter because there was much more to it. It centres on Louise, a woman with Down syndrome who lives in Sydney’s Inner West. She was dragged from her home and placed in full-time care with ESTIA, and her residence was sold against her will several months later. She depended on ESTIA and her legal guardian to safeguard her best interests.
The matter was reported to us for investigation because the ESTIA Foundation Gladesville, a NDIS registered provider of full-time care for people with special needs, knowingly made a FALSE complaint to an officer at Gladesville police station.
The complaint to police was about being intimidated by Louise’s older brother Tony. Louise now resides in the ESTIA Gladesville group home permanently after her mother passed away in early 2022. The complaint could have resulted in the brother being arrested and charged by police and then having to attend court on numerous occasions to defend an Apprehended Violence Order, and in the process expend thousands of dollars on legal fees.
Tony alleges that ESTIA management and staff were not acting in the best interests of Louise and she is becoming increasingly depressed. We will discuss the history of the matter in more detail in further posts.
For the moment we will deal with the initial report of the ESTIA Foundation making a false report of intimidation to the police. Knowingly making a false report to police amounts to a breach of the criminal code and is covered under the charge of “Public Mischief”. Public Mischief is an offence under section 547B of the Crimes Act 1900, which carries a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison.
Tony maintains that he was scammed by ESTIA in what he describes as a setup. It is alleged that ESTIA broke the law to protect what they saw as a threat to their reputation if Tony’s complaints were made public.
Tony stated that when he rang ESTIA during the week to book his regular Sunday outing with Louise (Father’s Day in this instance), he was told by ESTIA that he could NOT see Louise because one Tony’s children swore at an ESTIA staff member over the phone. The staffer further said that he had now been banned from seeing Louise as a result of the swearing incident.
Louise’s father is deceased and for many years Louise routinely takes Tony out for Father’s Day brunch because he is her God Father. Louise had already told Tony that she was going to take him out on Father’s Day and would have been disappointed.
When Tony explained over the phone to the staff member that the swearing incident had nothing to do with him, the staff member told him to take the matter up with ESTIA management.
Acting on that advice, Tony subsequently took the matter up with ESTIA and sent an email to ESTIA management. A copy of the email is attached. We will report further on this matter very soon.
The email Tony send is shown below;
Tony realised shortly after sending the above email that the last time he made a request to ESTIA, it took them two months to respond, and that was only because he sent a follow-up email; see a copy of that email below.
Tony did not wish to wait indefinitely and was eager to see his sister at this time. On Monday, September 4, 2023, he sent them another email with a 24-hour deadline to respond, failing which he would report them for live investigation online (such as this blog). His only concern was when he could see his sister. Below is a copy of the email in question.
One could be forgiven for not responding to a trivial matter, however the issues where ESTIA took 2 months to reply were of a serious nature.
The issues were;
- Louise was bullied into consenting to sell her home thus leaving her no option but to reside at the ESTIA Gladesville group home and subsequently Louise’s mental health suffered from hereon.
- Louise was manhandled by one of ESTIA’s staff who grabbed her by the head with both hands and forcibly turned her head left and right whilst giving the following instructions, “You’re not going to get upset anymore are you Louise”.
- Tony was simply anxious to reconnect with Louise. ESTIA and Louise’s sister and guardian, Susan, were shielding Louise and preventing access to her. Tony asked ESTIA for assistance to reconnect with Louise.
But ESTIA did not respond to this complaint even though it was concerning the welfare of one of their clients whom they receive substantial NDIS funding to look after and are obliged to do so.
Of serious concern here is that when Tony emailed ESTIA on Monday, 4 September giving them the 24hr deadline to repond, or the truth of the matter would be revealed in an online investigation, they immediately launched into action and reported to Gladesville police that Tony had intimidated them.
They did nothing supportive when one of their client’s welfare was questioned, but when their business reputation was in question they immediately launched into action.
The action was illegal and designed to prevent Tony from reporting ESTIA for investigation on a public website.
There was no intimidation and Tony was only taking the matter up with ESTIA management because an ESTIA staff member told him to do that.
Investigations into the matter indicate that there was NO intimidation because if there was intimidation, the police would have charged Tony.
I base this on the fact that on Tuesday, 5 September 2023 a police officer from Gladesville police station rang Tony at 3:18pm and had a lengthy discussion with him. When Tony asked what this matter had to do with the police, the officer replied that ESTIA Gladesville reported that Tony had been intimidating them. Indeed, in that discussion the officer stated that he found no evidence of intimidation in the emails. In a nutshell there was no intimidation, yet ESTIA sought fit to make a false report of intimidation, which itself is a strong form of intimidation.
Not only is the false report to the police a strong form of intimidation, but it is also in keeping with Tony’s allegation that ESTIA staff at Gladesville have been intimidating him since Louise moved into the group home in about June 2022, some 4 months after her mother died.
****** Update 12 October 2023 ******
History
Estia Foundation
Estia Foundation Australia is a charitable organisation run by the Greek Orthodox church.
Approximately 91% of their revenue is derived from the government. Of that, approximately 77% of total expenditure goes on employee expenses.
Unlike a great number of questionable organisations vying for NDIS funding and the subsequent allocation of funding to questionable expenses, there can be no questions or concerns about the genuine basis of the ESTIA Foundation or their genuine charitable intent.
Nonetheless, it is evident that overzealous employees are not adequately trained to distinguish between the best interests of the client and those of the organisation. It is not a difficult decision. Other organisations have argued that the organisation must prioritise its own financial stability before it can provide long-term care for its clients.
Whilst there is some good sense here in adopting that view, it simply does not hold true for ESTIA in this case. Firstly ESTIA’s income is on the back of government funding as indicated above 91% of their revenue is from this source.
Secondly ESTIA, to their credit, are financially sound and have about $4m in the bank.
Regardless of concerns about financial stability, it cannot be disputed that if you are in the business of providing care, you must be able to deliver on your commitment to provide care. If a decision is being made that could potentially jeopardise the mental health and welfare of one of your clients, should the manager of the facility where the client resides give priority to the organization’s financial concerns in the decision-making process, or should the manager give priority to the client’s wellbeing over the organisation’s financial concerns?
This seems to be the crux of the issue here.
ESTIA Foundation Gladesville is accused of failing to act in the best interests of one of their new clients. This is evidenced by Louise’s severe depression, attempts to run away from the home, and the removal of contact with her brother, and several other indications.
ESTIA Foundation Gladesville thought that the matter would conclude by lodging a false report of intimidation to the police and blocking access to Louise’s brother when he indicated he would expose their behaviour. But they were wrong.
The allegation here is that ESTIA knew full well that their client’s home was being sold and they also knew full well that when it was sold, then their client Louise, would likely be housed at that ESTIA Gladesville location for the rest of her life and ESTIA would in the process have secured long term NDIS funding.
Tony alleges that ESTIA should not put their financial concerns over and above the welfare of one if their NDIS funded clients.
It is evident from the above caption, extracted from the ESTIA website, that they advocate for impartiality and grant their inhabitants the liberty to visit their paternal residence. In this particular case however, ESTIA made every effort to prevent Louise from entering her paternal residence. In this instance one must ask why did ESTIA go against their policy and refrain Louise from visiting her paternal home?
ESTIA breached their own advertised policy here and they also imposed restrictions on Tony’s visitation rights by telephoning him before Christmas 2022 and advising that he was not allowed to take Louise into the Croydon Park suburb when he took her on one of their many outings.
It should come as no surprise that the Croydon Park suburb is the very one where Louise’s lived in her house for about 35 years or so.
Not only did ESTIA dictate that Tony was not allowed to drive through the suburb of Croydon Park with Louise, they also said that they will be allocating a staff member to accompany Louise on all visits with Tony to enforce this direction.