CEO Sean Rooney (pictured) was everywhere in the media last week, pointing out that LASA had identified 197 providers facing financial collapse.
He pointed to the fallout from the Earle Haven shutdown on the Gold Coast which required an evacuation of 69 residents with no notice, swamping local hospitals and aged care facilities.
“The scale of this risk is alarming for residents and their families, as well as distressed staff, financially strict providers and the government,” he said.
On the one hand, LASA is calling for $1.3 billion in new federal funding by Christmas to give short-term stability to the sector (this excludes new home care packages) but he says money is not the simple solution.
“We can’t just keep putting money into the system in the system is broken,” he said.
The Final Report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care is not due for another 12 months. Meanwhile, with half of all aged care homes operating at breakeven or losses, they are technically insolvent.
Rooney is calling for a structured exit path. Now, increasingly desperate aged care operator boards are reaching out to anyone to step in, a haphazard and uncertain process.
