A senior staff member at the Oakden nursing home who has already been criticised by South Australia's ICAC has come under fire for the second time in a day, this time at the coroner's court.
Julie Harrison held a number of managerial roles at the nursing home and allegedly sabotaged efforts to improve the quality of care provided to residents.
South Australian coroner Mark Johns is investigating the death of 70-year-old Graham Rollbusch who was found at the end of his bed in a pool of his own blood in February 2008.
He was attacked by a fellow resident who suffered from dementia who had been left to wander the ward at night unsupervised despite being known to have violent outbursts.
Carla and Neil Baron were brought to Oakden in early 2008 as independent advisors to help the nursing home regain its accreditation after it was sanctioned by the Commonwealth Government.
In her evidence on Wednesday, Ms Baron was questioned by counsel assisting the coroner about the competency of Ms Harrison.
"To my mind, she was not competent for the position," she said.
"She was always pleasant, always charming, always gave the appearance of trying to be helpful but she wasn't really good at delivering.
"Her attitude was to look after the staff."
Ms Harrison is one of five public sector officials who the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption has made maladministration findings against.
The court heard Ms Baron believed Ms Harrison was only filling the role for the first two weeks of their appointment until the Nursing Director of Intensive and Acute Care for Statewide Services Sharon Olsson arrived to also help regain accreditation.
Ms Baron told the court that she believed Ms Harrison sabotaged efforts by Ms Olsson to arrange a "strategic education program" for nursing staff based on the issues of non-compliance they had identified.
She said "somebody" called a couple of hours before and cancelled the session.
"Do you know who that somebody was?" the counsel assisting the coroner asked.
"I believe it was Julie," Ms Baron replied.
"Julie wasn't helpful in moving things forward.
"My issue with Julie is that I did not believe she had adequate knowledge base, she never demonstrated a knowledge base in either management or mental health."
Ms Harrison's lawyer Martin Anders told the court Ms Baron did not understand his client's role or the management structure and that achieving accreditation was down to a team of people, not just one person.
Ms Harrison is expected to give evidence at the inquest on Thursday.
