24 May 2022
Anthony Albanese’s election win will come as a great relief to aged care workers who, beset by staff shortages, have been unable to provide residents with the care they desperately want to.
“At the moment we hear constantly of people leaving work crying, leaving work tired and frustrated more than ever before and still providers still cutting shifts,’’ ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM told ABC Radio.
“One of the areas that we have seen is cutting enrolled nursing shifts, and just simply not adding more care worker shifts.
“So we think all round there needs to be more nurses, both registered and enrolled, and more care workers in order to make sure that residents receive the care they need and deserve.’’
The good news for aged care is the new Albanese Government committed pre-election, to:
- 24-hour registered nurse care in every nursing home
- A mandated minimum 215 minutes of care per resident per day
- Funding real wage increases for aged care workers
- Ensuring accountability across the sector
“In South Australia, we are relatively fortunate that a vast majority of residential aged care facilities do have a registered nurse on at all times, but there are still a disturbing number that do not,’’ Ms Dabars told the ABC.
“And I think Australia-wide there are very, very serious problems in some states and territories where they really have not had that for a long time.
“And the reality is that if you want to attract more staff into the sector, you actually do need more staff in the first place.
“But if you do not address these issues, such as saying that there can and should be a registered nurse on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, if you do not address the issue of ratios and actually growing and increasing the number all round of not just registered nurses, but of enrolled nurses and personal care assistants too, if you do not address the issue of wages and conditions and transparency of funding, then you will never attract and retain people.
“You will just continue to lose people from the sector and it will just become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“For care workers in particular, as much as I appreciate and am pleased about all the fast-food workers out there, to think that care workers are receiving less pay than those working in the fast-food sector when they are dealing with very, very vulnerable people, doing incredibly hard and difficult and challenging and yet, of course, incredibly rewarding work you do need to pay them appropriately as well.’’
Ms Dabars told the ABC there was an absolute lack of opportunities for graduate programs in aged care.
“There is a smattering but we are trying to be part of the solution, we have in fact developed up a Transition to Professional Practice Program that we are going to try out in the residential aged care sector in order to try and get some of those graduates directly into residential aged care.
“Because it is a fantastic career path, it can and should be.’’