Mum could have been saved: aged inquiry

Danijela Hlis believes her Slovenian mother died unnecessarily because aged care staff misunderstood her distress and tears for sadness, instead of pain.

Ms Hlis had given culturally-appropriate training to staff at the Tasmanian residential aged care facility to help them care for her mother Marija, who had dementia and did not speak English.

She told the aged care royal commission her mother's death was "totally unnecessary and premature".

"My dear mother died because she was not understood by staff," Ms Hlis said.

"I believe that if the staff that night would have communicated with mum by using a bilingual poster, pain scale, and called me as soon as she started crying, instead of assuming it was one of her moments of depression, sadness or loneliness, we could have saved her."

Ms Hlis said staff called her and an ambulance too late.

"I believe she died unnecessarily," she told a hearing on Wednesday.

Ms Hlis argued aged care staff had a duty of care to call a family member or an interpreter when a resident was in distress and could not explain why.

The family did not want an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Ms Hlis, who now lives in Queensland, said she received counselling through Carers Tasmania to deal with the shock of her mother's death in 2011.

Ms Hlis became a full-time carer for her parents after they moved from their small village in Slovenia to Tasmania in 1996. Her father Joze died in 2001.

The years caring for frail and unwell parents who were totally dependent on her took their toll.

"I suppose at first they destroyed me completely, because I was totally unprepared and unaware of what it is to give up your life and career and dedicate yourself to the lives of your parents," the 69-year-old said.

A number of family carers gave evidence to the royal commission's three-day hearing in Mildura in regional Victoria, detailing their feelings of exhaustion, isolation, grief and sometimes frustration and anger.

The royal commission will hold another public hearing in Brisbane next week, focusing on the regulation of aged care.