Residents neglected despite mandatory care minutes, minister told.

AiN Nisamon Klomkleaw has worked at a Sydney nursing home for nine years and was a member of the NSWNMA delegation to Canberra.

Nisamon said her colleagues at the nursing home were excited about her trip and hopeful that high-level lobbying would lead to improvements.

She said Minister for Aged Care Sam Rae was friendly and listened carefully to the delegation.

“Sam Rae said he’s going to take it further. Not just listening and then ignoring it.”

She said the delegation raised problems common throughout the aged care sector.

They include staff being required to perform non-care tasks, such as cleaning, laundry and setting up tables, which are then counted toward mandated care minutes.

Staff have no access to care minute records despite them being used to justify reduced staffing levels.

“Like many facilities, we are always working short-staffed with not enough time to spend with the residents,” Nisamon said.

“We are always rushing to do something outside of the care minutes, like doing the tea trolley, setting up the lunch table, water jug,  laundry, emptying bins, or cleaning.

“One day we will have like eight staff.  And then maybe two or three weeks later, management will say, ‘The care minutes have gone down’, so we have less staff.

“We don’t have access to the records to see what is actually happening with the care minutes.”

Nisamon said short staffing occurs almost daily, with exceptions on some weekends.

Staff on sick leave are not replaced, and staff on holiday are listed on the roster, thereby inflating actual staffing levels.

“When we raise that with management, they say, ‘Oh, that’s a mistake’. But it happens the whole time.”

She said understaffing brings greater risk of falls.

“Because of short staffing, we cannot be there to keep an eye on residents at high risk of falling, and sometimes we find them on the floor.  We don’t know how they got there or how long they’ve been there.

“Also, they don’t get proper showers and their meals are late.

“We don’t have time to sit down and ask, How are you and how are you feeling?  How’s your weekend? Nothing like that. We just pop in and pop out quickly. So, it’s really difficult.”

She said some residents get angry and complain that service is poor despite high fees. Others are sympathetic and forgo proper care, such as a full shower, to avoid burdening overworked staff.

“Some of (the residents) are really nice. But some get really angry and yell and curse us.”

Nisamon said apple and orange juice at lunchtime has been replaced with cheaper cordial, which residents hate. “Nobody drinks cordial, it just gets wasted every day.”

Many aged care workers are on student or sponsorship visas and reluctant to speak out for fear of jeopardising their immigration status, she added.