COVID and the federal government’s incompetence is putting elderly Australians living in residential aged care facilities in grave danger.

 Scott Morrison’s “live with COVID” strategy has put  the lives of elderly people living in aged care homes in peril, say experts.

On Christmas Eve, 105 aged care homes around Australia had an active outbreak. Two weeks later, the number of homes with COVID had exploded, more than quadrupling to 495 (168 in New South Wales), with 1465 residents and 1875 staff testing positive for COVID.

A week later, on 14 January, the numbers had doubled again with more than 1100 aged care homes across Australia reporting outbreaks, and 7014 active cases in residents and aged care workers.

Dr Sarah Russell, a public health researcher, told The Guardian that the booster vaccine ‘strollout’ and inconsistent infection control protocols had allowed the virus to spread like wildfire.

She said the federal government inexplicably bypassed the existing structures that successfully administer the annual flu booster to residents and outsourced the COVID booster rollout to private companies.

“These ‘in-reach clinics’ had only visited around 50 per cent of aged care homes before Christmas. And then one of the private companies, Aspen Medical, took holidays over the Christmas break,” she said.

On 15 August 2021, health minister Greg Hunt had announced rapid antigen tests would be available to aged care homes.

“We anticipate that regular use of RAT to screen aged care employees and visitors will provide much greater reassurance,” he said.

Sarah Russell argues that “many of the lockdowns could have been avoided if all staff had taken a rapid antigen test before each shift since August”.

“Yet some aged care homes have not had free access to the national stockpile of rapid antigen tests, while other homes have,” she said.

On 23 and 24 December, a deployment of rapid antigen tests was finally distributed to primary health networks in NSW for distribution to aged care homes.

“Once again, this was too little and far too late,” she said.

Regulator just as “hands-off”

An analysis by the NSWNMA has shown the government’s regulator – the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) – to be shockingly absent in their oversight of the sector during the pandemic.

The Association cross-checked 35 facilities listed with known COVID cases, with site visits by the ACQSC as documented on their website.

The analysis made these findings:

• Some of the facilities currently reporting COVID outbreaks hadn’t received a site visit since 2017.
• Ten of the 35 facilities reporting COVID cases were last visited in 2017 or 2018 and had been granted ‘exemptions’ from further visits.
• A suite of ‘exemptions’ had been issued to facilities deemed ‘low risk’. This means they had been given a green light to continue to operate without having a site audit.
• Nine of the 35 were not required under NSW legislation to have registered nurses on site 24/7. Of these, three were experiencing their second COVID outbreak.
• One facility failed across all outcomes on 4 March 2021 but surprisingly passed Requirement 3(3)(g) ‘Infection Control’. It was deemed suitable to re-accredit until October 2022 with no further site visits recorded. It is now reporting COVID cases.

The aged care regulator was heavily criticised in the aged care royal commission findings over a year ago for their failure to ensure people received safe and dignified care.

The federal government responded by committing to undertake a ‘capability review’ of the ACQSC but then deferred this until 2023.

“heartbreaking consequences”

NSWNMA Acting General Secretary Shaye Candish says this failure to act by the federal government and its regulator means “aged care is a disaster waiting to happen”.

“The Royal Commission into Aged Care identified significant issues with infection control across the sector. The federal government has still not addressed these issues,” she said.

“Our members in aged care are reporting a staffing crisis, lack of access to suitable PPE with many still not fit tested to a P2/N95, substandard infection control practices, and with many residents and staff still awaiting their booster. Some aged care facilities are being forced to ration rapid antigen tests, only using them every 72 hours.”

Dr Sarah Russell agrees that “the lack of leadership” and the “hands-off approach” of the federal government and its regulator during the pandemic “has had heartbreaking consequences for many residents and families around the nation”.

“Sooner or later, our federal government must be held to account for the numerous preventable tragedies that have occurred in the aged care sector,” she said.