United Workers Union welcomes the additional home care packages and training for dementia announced today.
But the Morrison government’s announcement completely fails to address the systemic workload and funding issues in aged care. Workers spoke out about the huge impacts of their crushing workloads and lack of time to provide quality care in the largest ever survey of aged care workers released last month.
Carolyn Smith, United Worker Union’s National Director of Aged Care says, “Today’s announcement fails to address the chronic funding needs sector-wide.
“The Morrison government just continues to deal out band aids to this sector. The Royal Commission has explicitly addressed the fact that workforce is the key to providing quality care, and this announcement completely fails to provide funding for that.
“Australia cannot wait for the final recommendations of the Royal Commission due this time next year for the Government to act comprehensively on the crisis in this industry – particularly those older Australians dying on home care waiting lists or not receiving the care they deserve in residential facilities because of understaffing.
“There is no funding to assist with the horror stories that chronic funding shortfalls lead to, like incontinence pads being rationed.
“Our aged care members are working with increasingly complex care needs and they welcome the funding for increased training in dementia.
“But leaving 110,000 Australians on a home care waitlist and providing nothing to increase time for quality care in residential facilities shows that the Morrison government is failing to accept the scale of the problem and the scale of the criticism levelled at them in the Royal Commission’s Interim Report.”
Jude Clarke, residential aged care work from Western Australia says, “The workload has increased so significantly over my career that we simply don’t have the time to provide emotional support to residents like we used to. It’s physically, mentally and emotionally stressful, with high workloads at low wages and its turning trained professionals away from the sector. In essence, we need more funding for quality care.”