Moira McCarthy died in palliative care 11 excruciating days later.

"The poor old pet didn't know what was going on," Ms Locco says of her 85-year-old mother.

"She hadn't had anything to eat or drink because of the fractured neck, which meant she couldn't swallow. She passed away on May 5 [2013]."

Four years later, though, Ms Locco and the nursing home where her mother fell are still waiting for the Coroner to make a finding about how she died and who, if anyone, was to blame.

Until that happens, nothing much else can move.

The home, the RSL's Vasey home in East Brighton, will make no comment until the report is finalised.

The Coroner's spokeswoman could say nothing except she expected the case to be finalised "shortly".

Ms Locco said the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner was also waiting for the finding.

But as the Medical Journal of Australia publishes evidence of the massive increase in deaths from falls in Australian nursing homes, Ms Locco wants her mother's story told.

"It was an absolute nightmare," she says.

"I'd been in and out having conferences with the care co-ordinator, and she said, 'We're terribly sorry, our staff are terribly upset'. I collected mum's things and the care co-ordinator shut the door and said the device was not faulty."

According to Ms Locco, when the police went to interview the staff involved, one of them could not speak enough English to make a statement, and the other one refused.

They have some preliminary evidence from the investigation, which according to Ms Locco suggests the slings being used in the overhead lifting device were not the right size.

She and her brother remain in limbo, wondering what went wrong, and how it might be put right.

"I never got a letter of apology or anything. Nothing. So I took the matter to [law firm] Slater and Gordon to see what I could do with it all, and they said if you're looking for financial compensation, in Victoria, any claim that a person has at the time of their death ceases," Ms Locco said.

"I said it's not about money. What I am concerned about is what actually has happened, and how to prevent it happening to someone else. I rang the Aged Care Complaints Commission the day after mum died, and they said, 'Well, look, it's unfortunate and we sympathise, but there's nothing we can do until we get the Coroner's report'."

Ms Locco said her mother had vascular dementia, was unable to move by herself, and had lost the power of speech.

"She had her hearing, though. She recognised me, and would put her hand up to my face."

Releasing his landmark report on aged care deaths on Monday, Monash University Professor Joe Ibrahim said he had faced pressure even from the academic community not to investigate people who died in aged care homes.

Professor Ibrahim, who studied Coroner's Court records of more than 23,000 cases of deaths, found that preventable deaths had quadrupled from 1.2 per 1000 admissions to 5.3 per 1000. Falls caused 82 per cent of those deaths, followed by choking at 8 per cent and suicide at 4.5 per cent.

His group's funding runs out next month, meaning there will be nobody to track sexual assaults and premature deaths in nursing homes.