Government Fails to Tackle Staffing and Care Crisis

The Health Services Union said today the Federal Government had not addressed the staffing and care crisis in aged care and failed to properly respond to key recommendations of an independent inquiry.

HSU national secretary Craig Thomson said not a single operator was required to lift their staffing levels, pay higher wages or improve the quality of care delivered in their facility despite the $2.2 billion in spending in last night's budget.

Mr Thomson also questioned why the Federal Government had failed to adopt the recommendations of the Hogan Review for a massive increase in training and education of staff to address the shortages in the industry.

"Professor Hogan said measures to address the shortage of staff and the huge wage disparity with the acute sector were 'paramount'," Mr Thomson said..

"But instead of the 2,700 extra registered nurses places at university he said was necessary there are only going to be 1, 000.

"Instead of the 12,000 nurses who should do medication management training 5,250 will do so and instead of the 30,000 who should do vocational training it will be 15,750."

"In fact more is being spent on PR spin to sell the package than on training by the department in the next financial year.

"Aged care providers will get substantially more money but it is not tied to improving care standards.

"A report produced for the Federal Government last month showed that less than 20 per cent of staff have enough time to properly care for residents.

" That means their health and safety is at risk. Where is the solutions to that problem?.

Mr Thomson said the failure of the government to act to ensure care standards and staffing were improved reinforced the union's support for a Senate inquiry into aged care which Labor is proposing.

A Melbourne-based aged care worker and HSU member Bella Millar said staff would be disappointed that more was not being done to improve the care of the elderly.

"We try to provide the best care we can but we are constantly rushing and not being able to give the quality of care we would like," she said.

"There seems to be plenty of money for making buildings pretty but without the staff inside caring for residents what is the point?"

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Last Modified: Wednesday, 16-Nov-2005 17:18:57 EST