Aged care: help needed locally

Warren Ross has worked in aged care for five years and became involved in the campaign in the lead-up to the Aged Care Royal Commission. He has welcomed the publication of the report released this week.

Mr Ross said staff wanted to see government funding increased "and the direct employment of permanent staff with decent pay and enough hours to live on" as well as "mandated minimum staffing levels and required mix of skills and qualifications in every residential facility, over every shift". Issues like better training and financial accountability in private aged care facilities to governments were also a concern, he said.

"Somewhere between 75-80 per cent of all funding to private aged care facilities comes from the federal government. Despite this, reporting requirements are remarkably lax.

"The central reason there has been a focus on aged care is the embarrassment caused by media exposes such as the ABC's Four Corners. It pointed to extreme neglect and in some cases abuse. In my experience, this is not common but the stress caused by inadequate staffing has to show somewhere."

Blue Mountains registered nurse Jocelyn Hofman reiterated Mr Ross's concerns.

"We really want the government to listen to our concerns and our plan to fix the broken aged care system because we are deeply concerned for our residents' safety," Mrs Hofman said. "The COVID pandemic has exposed the flaws of aged care and chronic understaffing. Providers are getting millions in subsidies and there's no strings attached. Funding must be linked to staffing. We will all get old, it's immoral, we are standing up for what we believe in."

Nurses and care staff plan to hold stalls on March 5 in Springwood and March 6 in Katoomba, to discuss the issues with residents and ask for signatures for their petition. See: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bmRaiseTheRatio.