practical living
in an aged-care facility. From the point of view of staff who were
already overworked and had not enough time to conduct their
daily tasks, it was just one more hassle for them to have to look
after the needs of couples, so it was too much trouble to bother.
What perspectives did the baby boomers who also worked in
aged care offer?
That was interesting, because you would think they would defend
their industry, but the majority of them said they regularly have
gut-wrenching experiences as workers. They see things they think
are just simply not right, and one of the things that breaks their
heart is seeing long-term couples separated. People who have
been married 50 or 60 years. Maybe they’re not married, but have
been together for a very long time, and through circumstances
completely beyond their control, they have that relationship
broken up either by the bureaucracy or the institution.
Most of the respondents who chose to answer this survey had
[extremely] strong opinions about providers making the maximum
effort to keep partners together. They thought that should be the
norm, but it isn’t.
Given that baby boomers will increasingly be entering aged
care, what should organisations do with these findings? What
changes should be made?
who visits them, who they can visit, how they spend their day and
what kind of activities they choose to participate in.
The clearest message that was coming through from a lot of these
responses was they want to maintain the life they’ve always had. No
matter what age they become, baby boomers said they want to be
able to maintain the life they’ve always had, to maintain the interests
they’ve always had, and not to have anyone else dictate that to them.
What was revealed through the survey about aged-care
workers’ views on couples sharing a bed?
That was quite interesting, because the study was done in two
stages. The first stage was interviewing aged-care experts, and
that ranged from carers and nurses through to management and
directors of facilities, and people who act as consultants or quality
assessors in those environments. The other group that provided
rich data was baby boomers who responded to the survey who
were, in fact, aged-care workers, nurses and carers. About a third
of them worked in the industry.
Each group provided quite a broad range of examples of what
goes on in aged care. What became clear was that from one
provider to the next, there were different policies and attitudes
towards couples being able to stay together within a facility.
There were some facilities that catered to that and made much
effort to provide rooms that were either adjoining and could be
arranged as one bedroom plus a sitting room or were single rooms
big enough for a double bed to be in the room. [However, these]
forward thinking providers [were not typical]. The norm seems to
be to separate people; to put them either in single beds in the same
room, which in the view of baby boomers meant being separated, or
in different rooms or even separate wings of the building.
There were a few responses, definitely in the minority, [that
showed] poor attitudes towards couples sharing a bed or a room
One thing that became evident was that providers need to look
at their buildings. Many current buildings don’t have rooms big
enough to suit couples, because it hasn’t been thought about.
There seems to be a growing trend to move to facilities that have
individual rooms designed for singles, and not necessarily with any
adjoining door to a neighbouring room.
I’m told the new building stock coming through is also likely
to follow this model of small, single rooms with their own
private ensuite. That’s not going to work for couples who want
to share a room. So providers need to start thinking, well what
facilities are we going to build in the future? How are we going to
accommodate couples? The current estimate is that about a third
of aged-care residents are married or in de facto relationships.
Even if they’re not living together because one partner’s in an
aged-care facility, they still want to spend time together and have
enough space and an environment conducive to that.
Whether the partners are in there together or separately, they
need to have a double bed so they can cosy up and conduct their
relationship the way they would have when they were living at
home. Providers need to think about this.
The other aspect is training staff to respect the privacy of
couples, because there’s not a lot of privacy in aged care. People
come and go in and out of rooms, often without knocking. There
must be some more awareness of the needs of couples and
perhaps [better] timing of staff duties so that there is a chance for
couples to be alone together.
Then the other aspect of it is the government needs to rethink
some policies, because it seems that one of the big drivers
separating couples is the aged-care funding instrument. Quite
often, an ACAT [Aged Care Assessment Team] will come into the
couple’s home, they will assess the need for each partner, and
if one partner is deemed not to need residential aged care, then
obviously there’s no funding provided for that person. They treat
each person as an individual instead of looking at the couple as
a whole and acknowledging the fact