OPINION
HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT TO ACCOUNT ON AGED CARE REFORM
Sean Rooney Chief Executive Officer Leading Age Services Australia
COVID-19, WORKFORCE AND THE ‘FIVE PILLARS’ WILL BE A KEY FOCUS IN 2022
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s we continue learning what living with COVID-19 is like we are winding down, gratefully I suspect, to a summer holiday season which we hope will more closely resemble the ones we used to have pre-pandemic. Families, friends and loved ones will be getting together over Christmas and the holidays—many for the first time in a long while. This includes visiting older, frail relatives who are supported at home or who live in residential aged care. It’s nearly two years since the COVID-19 virus first hit our shores and we reflect on some of the terrible and tragic events that took place as the virus spread. As we take stock, we also take the opportunity to look at what we have learned. Winter 2020 was an awful time especially for residential aged care with serious COVID-19 outbreaks first in Sydney and then Melbourne. Twelve months later and we were better prepared to protect our vulnerable older people and our staff when the infection spread once again. A key lesson learned is that we must continue to examine our processes in managing COVID-19 in consultation with health authorities and the scientific and medical experts. After nearly two years, it is a given that the pandemic is constantly evolving and so too must our approaches to dealing with it. In a webinar scheduled for 12pm AEDT on Thursday 16 December, we will explore lessons learned by residential aged care providers who have had DELTA variant outbreaks.
Leading Age Services Australia’s (LASA’s) tireless advocacy played a key role in resolving the presenting issues in the vaccination programs for aged care residents and staff. With the start of a booster vaccination program for older Australians now underway, we can look to the future and ask what will 2022 hold for aged care and older Australians? One thing we can be certain of is that COVID-19 is likely to still be with us in some form, which means we need to remain vigilant. A key issue our Planning for living with COVID paper notes is the ever-present and worsening problems due to aged care workforce supply. LASA has teamed with other aged care provider peak bodies under the banner of the Australian Aged Care Collaboration (AACC) to press the Federal Government to work with the industry to urgently address workforce shortages, including creating a sector-specific skilled migration program. Workforce pressures were already a constant before the outbreak of COVID-19 in Australia but the situation is now an unfolding crisis. The AACC approached the Government in early November calling for a relaxation of border closures and the resumption of skilled migration as a matter of urgency. We are also pressing the case for support for aged care providers to pay the workforce a competitive wage so that we can attract more staff to a career in aged care, and to develop career pathways through VET training programs Continued on page 10
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