workforce
The survey also shows that workers feel
their workload has risen as the pandemic
has raged on.
Two-thirds of residential care workers
and one-half of home care workers say
their workloads have increased while
75 per cent of workers say they don’t have
enough staff to provide quality care.
Forty-four per cent of aged care workers
said they would be unlikely to be working
in the sector in five years’ time – up from
37 per cent last year – and surprisingly,
more than half of frontline care workers say
the Federal Government’s controversial
retention bonus has had no impact on
keeping them in the industry.
There has been anecdotal evidence that
it has been difficult to access the bonus.
Jay Ali, an aged care worker from
Queensland, said that residents are
stressed and anxious about the pandemic
and limited access to families and friends,
and support from well trained staff, is
more important than ever.
“We did not get personal training about
COVID-19, it was online. Half of the people
didn’t even know there was training. We
still need that to happen,” he said.
Other workers report that residents
are going all day without staff even
entering their rooms because of low
staffing levels, and they say the pressure is
taking its toll.
“It’s been so stressful, we go into
someone’s house with a series of
safety questions, but they may have
dementia and not be able to answer them,”
says home care worker Karen from NSW
who did not want to use her full name.
“We sometimes have to buy our own
PPE. We are under a hell of a stress out
on the frontline, in the community, while
we see the rest of the country is safely
working from home. It makes us feel a bit
unappreciated.”
Smith believes that some of the
government rhetoric around the outbreaks
in the sector amounts to criticism of the
workforce. She believes that the issues
seen now have not arisen overnight, rather
the lack of funding and staffing cuts
over the last few years are, in part, to
blame for the large COVID-19 outbreaks
across the nation.
Smith also agrees with Victorian
Premier Dan Andrews’ criticism of the
private aged care homes in his state and
believes a time may come when we must
consider government control of the
aged care sector.
“I think the Commonwealth
government, the federal government has
to take responsibility for the way they fund
aged care. We’ve seen significant funding
cuts in aged care. Not to the actual
amount, but because more and more
people are in aged care and they’re still
getting the same amount of money per
person, there’s been funding cuts.
“I think we have to think of everything
[to improve aged care]. At the moment,
the federal government gets away with
it [poor care] because they’re two steps
away from it.
“So we either have to have government
run it or we have to have significantly more
funding that is much more tied to the
quality of care.” ■
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