By Carl Pfeiffer

A Territory woman has spoken about being chased by debt collectors representing an aged care facility housing her parents during the coronavirus pandemic, despite being denied access to organise their accounts by the very same organisation.

Jo Hansen’s parents, Dennis and Sue Hansen, are residents of aged care facility Regis Tiwi, which was placed into lock down by COVID-19 in early March.

Soon after, Ms Hansen started receiving bills for her mum and dad’s accommodation costs, but when she contacted Regis Tiwi to help complete her parents’ Centrelink asset and income assessments, she was met with a series of roadblocks.

After first contacting Regis via email on March 17, the organisation initially agreed to grant her visitation access to her mum and Centrelink via phone, but then failed to contact her for a month.

“Without Mum’s approval I couldn’t access her income and asset statement or her bank accounts,” Ms Hansen told the NT Independent.

“I advised Regis of this and told them I could not do anything about the payments of their accounts until I did.

“Soon we were being gouged with an additional $76 per day fee from Regis.

“The next thing I know, I get a call from a debt collector a week later; I was not happy as I had made a number of attempts to resolve the problem by now.”

Ms Hansen had several more back-and-forth interactions with Regis staff but was still unable to get a solution from the organisation.

As the weeks continued to drag on, calls from debt collectors increased.

“All of a sudden I was getting hit with $20,000 bills,” Ms Hansen said.

“It was extremely frustrating, there was nothing I could do about it as I still couldn’t get access to my mum.”

After almost two months and with a little help from the NT Independent, Ms Hansen finally had a breakthrough.

She received a detailed letter from Regis QLD/NT operations manager Andrew Thornton apologising for the way the organisation had handled the situation.

The letter was received several days after the NT Independent contacted Regis and asked a series of questions about Ms Hansen’s dilemma.

“We would like to apologise for the events you have experienced when attempting to gain assistance in lodging your mother’s income and asset assessment,” Mr Thornton wrote.  

“The escalating account for your mother and your inability to visit her or act on her accounts would no doubt have been very confronting for you to deal with.

“We understand that this would have been worrying for you given the amount your mother’s account is now in arrears.

“We have now put a process in place where you will no longer be receiving any follow up calls about your mother’s account while it is being rectified.”

The letter also stated the additional $76 daily fee would be refunded.

Ms Hansen described receiving the letter as “a relief”.

“They have given me time to get this resolved, I won’t be chased by debt collectors anymore,” she said.

“They are aware that they stuffed up.”

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