Member for Dobell, Emma McBride, has slammed Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s plan to offer Australian aged care workers an $800 bonus payment.
With the Coast’s aged care sector in dire straits, McBride said offering the payment, three years into a pandemic, was “nothing more than a political ploy on the eve of the election”.
“The aged care sector is in crisis after eight years of neglect under this Government, and the bungled COVID-19 pandemic response has left many older Australians vulnerable and at risk,” McBride said.
“Aged care workers are overworked, understaffed, and underpaid and they deserve better.”
She said workers in the sector, who have been on the frontlines of the pandemic for more than two years, were exhausted and deserve “more than a small pay-off”.
“Aged care workers need an urgent pay rise so they can continue to care for older Australians,” she said.
“The Government rolled out one-off ‘retention’ payments to aged care workers at the start of the pandemic, but unfortunately many workers missed out,” she said.
“Laundry and maintenance workers, and admin staff were all ineligible for these payments because the Government said they didn’t provide direct care to residents.
“With the Omicron outbreak, there are now more than 20,000 active COVID cases in Australian aged care facilities.
“At the same time, more than a quarter of aged care staff say they can’t get access to free Rapid Antigen Tests; this is disgraceful.
“The Government has failed to secure more RATs for aged care workers, and they’ve failed to pay them a fair wage – it just goes to show they don’t care about aged care.”
The Health Services Union (HSU) has also criticised the shortage of RATs in aged care facilities, along with a failure to roll out booster shots.
A spokesperson said a new survey showed aged care facilities on the Central Coast and across NSW are being crippled by the latest outbreak.
“There have been 168 outbreaks in aged care homes across the state and with hundreds of workers in isolation, the sector is now in crisis,” the spokesperson said.
The HSU survey of 1,000 aged care workers in NSW found: 82 per cent believed their facility was unprepared for Omicron; 90 per cent are experiencing understaffing; and 84 per cent are experiencing excessive workloads.
“Staff have reported working 12 or 16-hour shifts, working seven days consecutively, a shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and a shortage of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs),” the spokesperson said.
McBride said this situation could have been avoided if the Government had acted sooner.
“We are now in the third year of this pandemic and the Government is still sitting on its hands,” she said.
“Aged care workers are stretched to their limits with hundreds of staff being forced to isolate, while vulnerable residents are at risk of being exposed to the virus.”
Terry Collins