COVID-SAFE AGED CARE?
WHERE WAS THE GOVERNMENT'S PLAN? GOVERNMENT and industry focus is shifting from dealing with the immediate effects of the pandemic to rolling out vaccinations for aged care workers. One thing has become abundantly clear - when it was most needed there was never a comprehensive COVID plan for aged care. Three quarters of all COVID-19 deaths in Australia were in aged care, but at the height of the pandemic in 2020 Scott Morrison seemed more focused on partisan fights with state governments than on practical assistance. Meanwhile the aged care minister, when asked, famously didn’t actually know how many residents had died. Aged care is a federal responsibility but the states were largely left to sort the mess when it all hit the fan. But the issues go deeper than the initial response, or lack thereof.
The government had systematically underfunded the industry and encouraged the creation of low-cost high-profit ‘Jetstar’ operators. Non-profits and government aged care operators were slowly pushed out of the market in favour of big ASX listed aged care providers. It's telling that in Australia’s worst outbreak in Victoria many more infections were seen in for-profit facilities compared with stategovernment owned homes. None other than the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety stated:
‘There is a clear need for a defined, consolidated, national aged care COVID-19 plan’. HACSU is continuing to work to ensure our aged care members are supported and protected.
We worked with sister unions and other peak bodies to hold the federal government to account on issues from infection control support and surge workforce to stockpile PPE availability. Most importantly, we went in to bat for members at individual facilities who were lacking support, staffing or personal protective equipment during lockdowns. We won’t stop working to hold the industry and the government to account but, as the upcoming royal commission final report should show, we need a government that has a plan to take aged care seriously. Acknowledgments: No Plan PM: how government’s lack of an aged care plan cost lives - Michael West
We told the Tasmanian Government that it needed an emergency
2020 Covid-safe
22
coordination body for any future outbreaks, and it was established, with HACSU as a sitting member.
Aged Care Plan
