National Carers manager offers a hard look at the burden on Australia’s carers

Sadly, many had left the court room by the time Susan Elderton, the National Policy Manager at Carers Australia, fronted the Commission. They missed out on a poignant and often resigned look at the challenges facing our carers.

Ms Elderton says their research shows just 3% of carers found it easy to access planned respite, while none found it simple to access emergency respite – because it if often being used as a ‘try before you buy’ option for people before they enter residential care.

She added that many providers do not want to offer respite: “There’s a whole lot of administrative work, there’s an ACAT that needs to be done and the subsidies are really low compared to permanent care.”

Asked by Senior Assisting Counsel Dr Timothy McEvoy QC if her organization had been pursuing the issue with the Federal Government, Ms Elderton laughed and said “We’ve been pursuing that for about 15 years.”

She says National Carers are mainly concerned with the understaffing of personal care workers though the number of registered nurses is an issue such as “when you get one RN for 80 to 100 residents.”

She pointed to staff being so rushed off their feet, the care they give residents amounts to “casual neglect”.

“It could be as simple as putting someone to bed very early in the evening who can’t move, facing them to a wall and they’re there for hours and hours. It’s those really little things that can make somebody’s life a total misery.”

Ms Elderton added that the poor pay is unlikely to attract the right kind of workers. “They have no mission about being there. They’re not proud to be there. They’re there because they get paid. And that’s not good for a care industry.”

That said, National Carers does not support mandated staffing ratios, she says. “I think the reality is aged care is a much more complex beast than childcare.”

Is the fact that ratios are hard to implement a good enough excuse for not doing so?” Commissioner Briggs responded.

“There is no evidence from other countries or even the Victorian public residential care sector where they do have rations that it has made a big difference to the quality of care,” Ms Elderton replied, though she admitted it was not her area of expertise.

But as Commissioner Tracey concluded, carers are our unsung, selfless heroes – and without them, the need for more paid aged care workers will only increase.