18 February 2021
Caring for the elderly has been ANMF (SA Branch) nurse Sharon Lawrence’s “passion”. But it is not a passion shared by some for-profit businesses.
An aged care nurse for more than 34 years, Ms Lawrence told The Advertiser some providers were not driven by looking after older people, but by making money, and “the less staff they have, the more money they make”.
An Enrolled Nurse, Ms Lawrence is part of the ANMF’s national campaign for mandatory staff levels and vastly improved ratios of nurses to unqualified care workers in aged care. The sector badly needs 80,000 more direct carers nationally and a doubling in the ratio of nurses. There are simply not enough nurses in aged care.
Back in August the ANMF (SA Branch) wrote an open letter calling on the Federal Government to urgently act on aged care.
ANMF (SA Branch) Adj Assoc Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said lack of resources and staffing had created a situation where aged care workers have been reduced to tears at being unable to provide the level and quality of care required.
Ms Dabars said aged care workers were “dedicated and passionate people who provide care with compassion and kindness’’. However, there were simply not enough staff to provide quality care, noting that it was very common to have one Registered Nurse for 100 plus residents.
We also called for greater accountability and transparency in funding for the sector, to ensure the $20 billion a year the Government spends on aged care actually goes towards the provision of care rather than boosting executive salaries or shareholder dividends.
“There’s a lot of nursing homes who get away with saying, ‘we’ve got plenty of staff’,” Ms Lawrence told The Advertiser. “But they’re top heavy with management staff who are clinical but don’t help out on the floor.”
Lawyers for the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety have pointed to a dramatic fall in RN and EN numbers between 2003 and 2016, and a surge in less-qualified general care workers, many of whom perform work once performed by specialised nurses and medics.
Ms Lawrence gave evidence at the Royal Commission public hearing at Adelaide Town Hall in 2019.
She told the Commission that during more than three decades as an aged care nurse she had seen the position of EN “disappear from some facilities altogether”.
“I have seen the loss of RNs, some replaced by ENs, some not replaced at all. You already know that some facilities don’t have RNs over 24 hours. I have seen the carers’ hours cut, and residents’ care needs increased enormously,’’ she said.
“It’s getting harder and harder for everyone to care for our elderly in the way that they deserve when you don’t have time to care for residents properly.
“We used to have time to talk with residents, sit and do their nails, not just clean them, take them for walks. But now, we don’t have the time. The carers are run off their feet, and don’t have the few extra minutes to get to know their residents.
“The RNs are trying to do the best they can with the limited time available, often working with 1 RN to 90-120 residents.
“The sites that don’t have ENs have med comp (medication competent) carers. These carers have anywhere between four hours to two days training to give medications to our vulnerable elderly.
"Not only does the RN have to supervise these med comp carers who are not regulated or registered, the RNs are held accountable and responsible if anything goes wrong, placing their registration at risk,’’ Ms Lawrence told the Commission.
“How can we address this? Simple!
- Stop med comp carers.
- We need mandated safe skills mix in aged care.
- We need mandated safe staffing levels.
“It is time to put the focus back on the care of our residents and give them the time they need, not the time allocated by lack of staff,’’ she said.
“For the sake of our elderly, we need it now.’’