industry & reform having priority hubs nearby . We ’ ve been encouraging it from day one . I think all of these things collectively are going to assist us , and of course , we ’ ve got a deadline in September now to meet , so we ’ re all working towards that . And the team members are aware of it . It ’ s like they supported the flu vaccine , and that whole timetable last year . I ’ m sure they ’ re going to do something similar with that issue with our support .
Do you think the September staff vaccination deadline is going to be an issue ? Are you worried about not making the deadline ? I think anecdotally from talking to staff and to other providers there are going to be staff who are going to leave , because they won ’ t take on the vaccine . There are going to be employees in aged care who don ’ t want to take the COVID vaccine for all the different reasons and things that have been discussed . Are they going to be pushed out of aged care ? That ’ s ultimately the question . I think we need to do two things . We need to focus on the target . We need to focus on supporting the team to get to the maximum levels of vaccination that we can . When the state health orders are released , that will tell us what exemptions are going to be available for staff .
The question is going to be , will the government essentially force us to push these employees out at a time where we can ’ t afford to do that ? Or will they extend the deadline ? Will they put other measures in ? And I think we ’ re going to be faced with this problem in that all aged care operators are going to have a portion of their workforce that isn ’ t vaccinated . And I don ’ t think it ’ s going to be as simple as just saying that this is a deadline , and now you need to tell these people to move on . It ’ s far more complicated than that .
Are the rapid antigen tests run by the government , or in conjunction with the government ? Before we kicked this off we did what all good providers should do and spoke to the Commonwealth , to tell them what we were doing . We explained our situation . We spoke to New South Wales Health Authorities as well and explained the situation to them . And by all accounts , both agencies were very supportive of what we were doing .
We ’ re not experts in the rapid antigen test . We had to partner with another organisation called Respond Global .
The gentleman there that we ’ re dealing with , Dr Ian Norton , is a specialist in this area , and we are specialists in aged care . By all accounts , the due diligence we conducted on the rapid antigen testing is quite good . It suggests that for the particular tests we ’ re using , CareStart , the accuracy levels are good . They ’ re quite impressive in terms of asymptomatic people . And , as another measure , as part of a multi-layered process to protect your workforce and your residents , I think it ’ s a great component to have . And the more I learned about it , the more surprised I was that we ’ re not seeing this more widely used in other areas of the country .
The speed of the rapid antigen tests comes with a bit of a trade-off : while they take just minutes , they are less reliable . I think there ’ s two things at work here . In symptomatic people , there ’ s an accuracy percentage of somewhere around the mid-90s . It varies , but it looks like around the 95 mark , which is quite good . In asymptomatic people , it drops significantly to the 50 to 60 per cent mark . However , what compensates for this is the speed of the test and the frequency .
We ’ re doing this every single day ; we ’ re doing it at the moment . During the peak of the pandemic and this current lockdown , we ’ re doing this every day for weeks on end consecutively . With all the other measures in place as well , it really is a good additional measure to have .
The quick turnaround is super important as an aged care provider , because particularly at Glenfield , I have 350 to 400 people coming in every day to start shifts . We have to manage that process , and it ’ s the only way you can do it . The PCR tests that New South Wales Health use are by far the best . They ’ re the gold standard tests , but they take a long time . The horse has bolted by the time you get a result back , and we ’ re trying to protect the workforce and our residents on a daily basis and manage complex rosters at the same time .
So you ’ re testing staff every single day when they get to work ? That ’ s exactly right . At Glenfield we ’ ve set up multiple rapid testing stations because we have multiple homes . There ’ s stations positioned in front of each of those homes . And as the team members turn up across all the shifts throughout the day , we have registered nurses who are manning those stations , and before they start their shifts , they ’ re tested . And they obviously have to wait for the 10 minutes for the procedure , and then once they are cleared , they go in .
Are you testing only staff or is there testing of asymptomatic residents too ? The resident vaccination rates are very good . They ’ re in the 90 per cent mark . We ’ re testing all staff that come in , and we ’ re testing all contractors that come in . Obviously in greater Sydney and New South Wales , there are restrictions on who can come into our home , and visitors are coming in again on the restricted guidelines from the government , so any visitor that comes in at the moment is also being tested .
Is this something you would potentially keep on for visitors coming into homes to put up another shield to stop the spread ? There ’ s obviously a substantial cost attached to all of this . That ’ s the reality . And in this particular case , it was about managing the risks . The risk escalated . This particular home was in a really high risk area with all of the activity going on around us . We have managed this process around a period that we think is at the top of the cycle , and we ’ re going to monitor it and go from there .
The reality is the effort and energy that goes into this , the resources that you have to put into this , the cost of the tests themselves , and given the huge , huge financial challenges and pressures aged care providers are under today , it ’ s not sustainable . We ’ re not-for-profit , and we couldn ’ t afford to do this 365 days a year . It ’ s not feasible , not without government support .
If the government , for example , started to subsidise the test kits as one example , that could help , if the government had a program where they were running this . It needs some form of government intervention , not just with any provider to make it sustainable , but if other areas flare up , and let ’ s hope it all dies down and we see the end of it , I think while we ’ re waiting for the whole population to be vaccinated , that ’ s the most critical timeline . And I think the pressure will subside once our population reaches that herd immunity , or the percentage of vaccination that we ’ re after . But until then , I think any site that gets any sort of flareup in a region or an LGA , I think I would certainly consider doing it again . ■
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