Shine Lawyers has filed a class action on behalf of 25 people after 19 residents died at Anglicare’s Newmarch House in Kingswood, Penrith, 55km west of Sydney’s CBD, during the early outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shine Lawyers associate Emily Clarke named Anglicare and the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District as defendants.

“Death was a sad reality of the pandemic but lives could have been saved at Newmarch House,” she told The New Daily.

“Residents were being treated in a facility at the home which clearly was not able to care for them properly when they should have been transferred to an actual hospital as quickly as possible.”

“We allege it was both the operators of the home and NSW Health whose failures contributed to these deaths.”

Coronavirus spread through Newmarch House in April and May 2020, with 37 out of 97 residents testing positive and 19 dying over that period. A further 34 staff members also contracted COVID-19.

An inquest into the deaths of the 19 residents, which began in July last year, is expected to record its verdict in August.