Pictured above from left to right: Dr Rachel Swift, Elizabeth Dabars, Jo Dyer, Jeremy Carter and Louise Miller-Frost.
24 February 2022
“The current state of aged care I would describe as unsafe, unkind, uncaring but also unsustainable.’’
Powerful words from the Australian Health Services Research Institute’s Professor Kathy Eagar, speaking at the ANMF (SA Branch)’s online forum, Fix Aged Care – It’s Now or Never.
Hundreds of members clicked into the virtual Town Hall ‘meeting’ on Wednesday night to hear evocative testimonies from aged care advocates and workers as well as the policy positions of the four key political candidates for the state’s only marginal federal seat, Boothby.
Boothby could well decide the outcome of the looming federal election and as such the fate and future of an aged care sector currently in crisis.
Three of the four Boothby candidates have already signed the ANMF (SA Branch) Fix Aged Care pledge: the ALP’s Louise Miller-Frost, Independent Jo Dyer and the Greens’ Jeremy Carter committing to:
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RNs on site 24/7;
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mandated staffing ratios and skills mix;
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greater transparency of funding tied to care; and
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improved wages and conditions for one of lowest paid and most overworked workers in the country.
The Liberal Party’s Dr Rachel Swift, however, continued to decline our repeated requests to sign the four-point pledge. Not one Liberal Party member has agreed to sign up to Fix Aged Care.
“681 aged care residents have died from COVID this year, in just six weeks,’’ ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler told the forum.
“People who, in the most astonishing display of heartlessness and lack of respect from our Prime Minister and Health Minister, were told that they were palliative, they were going to die anyway, that they didn’t really matter so much. People who should have been protected by their Government and people who could have been protected if the Government had acted responsibly.’’
Professor Eagar argued that aged care should be reframed to “sit next to Medicare”.
“The evidence from my perspective is that the private market model has not worked … there’s no evidence of better quality, better efficiency, better effectiveness, better access,’’ she said.
“I think it’s time we have to conclude that aged care should no longer be framed as a private market and regulated as a private market. If it hasn’t worked in 25 years, we should not think it’s going to work going forward.
Pictured above from left to right: Above, forum moderator Jessica Adamson with Ms Dabars.
“I’d be arguing that Medicare is a national funded program, nationally regulated and seen as a public good. Unless we start thinking about aged care as a public good rather than a competitive market we as taxpayers are not going to be wanting to put more money into it. That’s a really fundamental issue going forward.’’
Event MC ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars told the forum: “The reality is that attracting and retaining a skilled workforce who are prepared to work in the sector quite frankly will never be fixed if you don’t deal with ratios to provide people with the capacity to deliver safe and appropriate care and it will never be achieved if you don’t pay people appropriately.
“Presently we have nurses working in the sector who are being paid at minimum 15 per cent less than their counterparts in the acute care sector,’’ Ms Dabars said.
“We have aged care workers, with all due respect to fast-food workers, who are being paid less than those who work in the fast-food industry. I don’t know about you but whilst I think my chips and fries are really important, they are certainly not as important as the care to people who are vulnerable, who are afraid, who are lost, who are not being cared for appropriately, who are sitting in their own waste. And it just is a crying shame.
“We have heard from our members who are concerned about their ability to just provide basics of care, they rush, rush, rush. They never can provide what they need to and it is inhumane.
“We know that our nurses and care workers are trying the very best they can but they themselves are just as much victims as the residents who they are trying to care for.
“We have put forward solutions (the aged care pledge).
“The reality is this is an election, this is the time to make choices and to make change and we strongly encourage all of you to do just that.’’