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16 December 2020
This Christmas hundreds of Australian families will be spending what should have been a festive dinner with at least one less seat at the table.
Some 685 lives have been lost to COVID-19 nationally in our failed aged care system, an industry that has seen a 400 per cent rise in preventable deaths in modern times.
To acknowledge the avoidable deaths of elderly, vulnerable people in aged care facilities, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (SA Branch) and ANMF branches across the country have launched a national #EmptyChair social media campaign.
“It is absolutely abhorrent that people who have contributed so much to our community are not receiving the care they need or deserve, with providers seemingly more concerned with their profit margins,” ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said.
“Our members who are working in aged care are distraught. They are committed to providing high-quality care and protecting the dignity of older Australians but their cries for support and more staff continually go unanswered.
“We, along with other ANMF branches interstate, have long and repeatedly called on the Commonwealth Government to urgently address aged care’s chronic problems, including the need for mandated staffing levels and skills mix of workers and greater accountability and transparency within the industry,” Ms Dabars said.
In Victoria, in public aged care facilities which have state-legislated staff and skills ratios, there have been zero COVID deaths. In privately run, federally funded and regulated aged care facilities with no staff and skills ratios, there have been 655 COVID deaths.
“The message is abundantly clear: We need staff-to-resident ratios as federal law in aged care. It’s simple; ratios save lives,” Ms Dabars said.
“The people living in residential aged care are just that, people. They are not a statistic on a spreadsheet that relates to profit and loss. They are our mothers, our fathers, our grandparents and our friends. They deserve so much more this Christmas and beyond.”
ANMF branches across Australia, representing 270,000 nurses, midwives and personal care workers, are urging the community to support their #EmptyChair campaign and ask the Morrison Government to ensure that staff to resident ratios in aged care becomes law.
“The #EmptyChair campaign highlights the fact that, tragically, people are dying prematurely in aged care facilities and there is a large contingent of Australians who continue to suffer due to insufficient staffing levels and inadequate skills mix,” Ms Dabars said.
“This isn’t just a national emergency - it’s a matter of life and death. It is also entirely preventable.
“This Christmas please ask the Morrison Government to ensure staff to resident ratios in aged care becomes law.’’
Watch the Ratios for Aged Care video below:
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