An average of 11 residents have died each day with COVID in aged care this year.More older people are staying out of aged care longer, making homes less viable.COVID-related deaths in Australian aged care homes are now averaging 11 people each day, as families increasingly shun the sector and a new federal minister faces the task of fulfilling Labor’s promise to tackle the crisis swiftly.
Newly sworn-in Aged Care Minister Anika Wells said fixing aged care was one of the issues that contributed to Labor’s election victory. “Tens of thousands, if not more, Australians voted for us on the basis that they were putting their faith in us to help people in aged care.” Aged Care Minister Anika Wells says the new government has a mandate to improve the aged care sector.She found it difficult to visit Primerano, who has dementia and can’t walk or talk, during the pandemic-induced lockdowns. “It made it impossible to check she was being cared for.”
“We would be happy to hire another 400 home-care workers tomorrow because the need at the moment far exceeds the workforce,” said Sarah Newman, general manager of home services at BaptistCare NSW & ACT. Nursing home operators are also warning that, with fewer residents, the viability of some facilities is in doubt, and that the new Albanese government must swiftly provide stop-gap funding until a major staff wage case before the Fair Work Commission is settled.
So severe is the drop in people entering care homes that most are now running at a financial loss as the growing home-care sector poaches workers, also putting new minimum staffing standards promised by Labor at risk.found two-thirds of 1192 aged care homes surveyed were running at a loss, up from 52 per cent last year.