workforce
From the heart
A lack of registered nurses is the next aged care crisis , but will anyone listen ?
By Conor Burke
Maree Bernoth is angry . It doesn ’ t appear straight away ;
she ’ s affable on the phone and the kind of interviewee you enjoy chatting to on a Friday . She ’ s open and likes a yarn .
I ask her if I can record our conversation and she tells me that ’ s fine as long as I delete any swear words she might say , and I knew then that we would get on .
Sometimes , talking to academics can be quite formal , formulaic and a bit stiff . But Maree talks from a place tarred with sadness , so you get the feeling that honesty is the only option .
She is an associate professor at Charles Sturt University School of Nursing , Midwifery and Indigenous Health , but first and foremost she is a nurse and has spent two decades trying to get people to see the mess aged cared is in , hence her anger .
She ’ s tried to quell the outrage and spend her time working on positive things . She sometimes feels people won ’ t listen if she only talks about the negative . She co-wrote a book on healthy ageing in aged care along with other positive research endeavours , but when you care about something , and you see something wrong , you have to speak out .
Like on the shortfall of nurses in aged care . In July , the royal commission found that by 2050 Australia will need over 200,000 registered nurses working in aged care . Currently we have 22,000 .
Bernoth says that since the aged care reforms of the 90s , culminating in the Aged Care Act 1997 , there has been a concerted push to get rid of the registered nurse throughout the sector as well as a reframing of what aged care is .
Before 1997 , when Bernoth was working as an educator in a large aged care facility , for every 60 residents there was 308 hours per week of registered nursing time .
Today , she says , it ’ s down to a paltry 168 hours per week , even though there are frailer , more vulnerable residents in residential aged care and more care workers with variable education and experience who need supervision .
“ The registered nurses are seen to be expensive . I think there ’ s a perception also that they ’ re not needed . This mantra that a nursing home is the person ’ s home is a fallacy ,” says Bernoth .
“ A nursing home is not the older person ’ s home , and anyone can see that it ’ s not a home . That mantra meant that the focus was taken off their physical needs , their health needs . It was ignorant of the fact that older people who are so frail that they need to leave their homes to go into a facility have complex needs .
“ One manager said to my grandmother , ‘ The only thing that will change is your address .’ Well , that ’ s ridiculous . I mean ,
26 agedcareinsite . com . au