The largest-ever survey of aged care workers has told a story of overwork and chronic understaffing that forces workers unable to really care for home care and residential aged care customers.
Nine in 10 residential aged care and home care workers said they were too stretched by heavy workloads to offer elderly Australians proper care. The worry caused by being forced to provide substandard care means depression, stress and emotional and physical fatigue are common among aged care workers.
As a result, four in 10 intend to leave the sector with five years, the survey by Australian trade union United Voice and the Health Services Union found. Not only this, workers said they were dealing with emotional and physical fatigue, with four in 10 revealing they plan to leave the sector within five years.
This outflux of aged care workers has previously been flagged as a major problem for both the aged care industry and its customers. The federal government’s Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce warned in June 2018 that the aged care sector was suffering from high staff turnover, poor employee engagement and difficulty attracting workers – even as the number of Australians continues to grow rapidly due to an ageing population.
Exacerbating the issue of surging numbers of aged care consumers, the survey of 5,000 aged care workers released today found that nine in 10 respondents from the residential aged care sector and more than seven in 10 home care workers said they’d seen a noticeable increase in the number of people who required complex care. Workers particularly pointed out a rise in the number of people with dementia requiring care.
Carolyn Smith, an aged care director and assistant secretary of United Voice, said there was simply not enough government support for the industry which is quickly going downhill. Calling it a “real eye-opener” Smith said the situation is “truly shocking” and something needs to be done before it’s too late.
“Billions in funding being ripped from the system by the Morrison Government has left workers with high levels of stress, understaffing, impossible workloads and navigating a system that is just not funded to deliver quality care for our elderly,” Smith explained. “It’s heartbreaking. Workers and those in their care deserve so much better. These workers can’t wait for the Royal Commission to report; they need a workforce strategy and investment now.”
The clear theme from the survey was that there was no time to care, with the situation so dire that workers were forced to skimp on services by, for example, hand-washing clients rather than helping them shower or keeping residential aged care customers in bed all day rather than assisting them to walk around to socialise. Nine in 10 of both residential aged care and home care workers who responded to the survey claimed they didn’t have time to offer the social and emotional support their elderly residents and clients needed.
Meanwhile, just under 8 in 10 home care workers admitted they’d hurried up clients because they have too many tasks to complete in a given time while in their home and more than 8 in 10 said that they had declined clients’ requests to spend more time with them because their workload did not permit it.
Echoing Smith’s comments, Health Services Union National President Gerard Hayes said the findings were shocking, but unsurprising. Hayes claimed funding for the sector had run dry, causing workers and their clients to suffer.
“Federal budget cuts have eroded the sector’s margins,” he admitted. “Our members often report anecdotes of five dollar a day food budgets or rationing of sanitary pads.
“Critically important jobs in the sector such as cleaning and catering are being outsourced to shonky operators who steal employee wages,” he said. There is simply no fat in this sector, the government has sawed into bone.”
However, despite the concern from aged care workers the government has said it’s committed to helping the sector. In the May budget, the Morrison government committed what it said was record funding of $21.6 billion to improving the country’s aged care system, including $282 million to be spent over five years from 2018 on an extra 10,000 home care packages.
This was followed by an announcement from Richard Colbeck, the minister for aged care and senior Australia, just weeks ago, who claimed a further $150 million would be spent over three years to provide “entry-level home support” to residents of areas where demand for services are highest.