A woman whose parents-in-law both died from COVID-19 contracted at a Melbourne nursing home says her family is traumatised by the way residents were neglected.
Ilias and Soula Trimbos died within a week of each other after testing positive for coronavirus while living at St Basil's Home for the Aged in Fawkner last year.
"They died in a horrific way - neglected, scared and all alone," Rachael Trimbos said of the 45 St Basil's residents who died from COVID-19 during Victoria's second wave outbreak.
"Residents weren't given a chance - they were let down by so many people, systems and politics."
After testing positive on July 12 last year, Ms Trimbos said she was told her mother-in-law was asymptomatic and doing well. She was transferred to hospital on July 24 and that's when they found out how dire her condition was.
A doctor at Epworth Hospital described Mrs Trimbos as "one of the sickest patients" in the COVID ward.
"He made reference to the fact they don't normally let people come and visit on the COVID ward but in extreme circumstances they make allowances, and he believed this was such a situation," she told an inquest before State Coroner John Cain on Wednesday.
There was applause from someone in the courtroom when Epworth's director of medical services, Dr Luis Prados, told the inquest about allowing end of life visitors.
"Nobody dies alone at Epworth if we can stop it," he said.
While Mrs Trimbos was at Epworth, her husband was still at St Basil's "supposedly" still testing negative, Ms Trimbos said.
She said the family struggled to get information, calling nine times in one day before someone even answered the phone.
Ms Trimbos said staff told her he was being moved to hospital "for his own protection" and would return to St Basil's later.
But when staff at Glenferrie Hopstial called her that night, they told her his paperwork showed he had tested positive and it seemed Mr Trimbos hadn't received his medication for five days.
He and several other residents transferred from St Basil's all needed bathing, food and water.
"Her words were 'it's actually quite heartbreaking'," Ms Trimbos said.
Mrs Trimbos died on August 1 and her husband a week later.
Earlier nurse Angela Cox, who was brought in to lead the fresh workforce when regular staff were stood down, said the handover details she was given weren't adequate and staff struggled to identify residents.
She claimed the home's director of nursing Vicki Kos refused to answer clinical questions and said she would only answer non-clinical questions - preferably by text or email - once a day.
Ms Cox said there were times of "desperation" at St Basil's where she had to contact Ms Kos about clinical matters, including identifying residents.
"I did have to contact her about identifying a resident because the file didn't represent where he was actually located in the facility and I couldn't identify him from the photo," she said.
She also struggled with finding and keeping replacement staff, saying one refused to return for a shift because of "utter exhaustion" and fears his registration would be affected by failures to look after residents' wellbeing.
