Crisis has exposed a lack of planning in the aged care sector

The issues of aged care homes has come to the fore in recent days.

On Weekend Breakfast a few moments ago, John Hewson, professor in the Crawford School at the Australian National University has said the aged care system needs more planning in the aged aged care sector.

“There’s been no forward strategic thinking in relation to aged care,” Mr Hewson said.

“We have a very significant problem now at all levels whether it’s the retirement village area … in the nursing home sector where we have seen a poor quality of services and in some cases overcharging, lack of proper nursing services and so on.

“When you look at the COVID coming through, there’s been no medium-term thinking or planning about how to handle that in the nursing home sector which was going to be the most hard-hit sector.”

He said the answer was to better regulate the sector as a whole and to have a plan implemented.

Kate Mills, who is the CEO of the Property Industry Foundation, agreed, saying the crisis has exposed how we have not addressed how we look at the most vulnerable people in society.

“What you hear coming through again and again from all of those homes is staff shortages because so many of those healthcare workers 
have got ill, poorly paid, casual employment, moving from centre to centre, et cetera.

“So something you could do right now right here in terms of addressing those staff shortages and limiting the amount of mobility of staff between those homes would be an excellent first step.”