An aged care provider in Melbourne has been fined $66,000 after a resident suffered severe burns and later died following prolonged contact with a wall heater.

Blue Cross Community Care Services Group was sentenced in the Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to a single charge of failing to ensure the workplace was safe and without risks to health. The company was fined without conviction and ordered to pay $4132 in costs.

In October 2021, the 90-year-old non-ambulant resident had an unwitnessed fall out of his bed at the Glenroy facility, resulting in his feet coming to rest against a hydronic wall heater for an unknown length of time.

At the time of the incident, the injured resident was among a number at the facility that were COVID-19 positive, with restrictions impacting on staffing, rostering and work practices for attending to residents.

The resident suffered severe burns and in the following weeks the injuries deteriorated, requiring four toes to be amputated from his left foot and a skin graft on his right foot.

About four months later, the resident died due to sepsis caused by complications of necrotic burns.

The court heard that the risk of heater burns had been identified within the aged care industry, including through Coroners Court recommendations and bulletins issued by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.

WorkSafe Victoria’s investigation found a risk assessment of the Blue Cross facility conducted two months before the incident had recommended the provider review the temperatures of all heaters to ensure residents could not be burnt and to consider installing heater guards.

It was reasonably practicable for the provider to have reduced the risk of burns by replacing the wall heaters with a model featuring cool-touch surfaces or fitting protective covers to the existing heaters and piping; by training and instructing workers to ensure individual heaters were set at a lower temperature and were checked regularly; and by lowering the maximum temperature of the main boiler.

“The risk of wall heaters causing burn injuries to aged care residents is well known within the industry, and so are the ways to control it,” said WorkSafe Victoria executive director of health and safety, Sam Jenkin.

“There can be no excuses for this facility’s failure to protect a vulnerable person in their care from a hazard they had been warned about on multiple occasions.”