Last week, Allambie Heights Village Ltd.’s CEO Ciarán Foley made the argument that the Royal Commission into Aged Care would need to re-write its Final Report based on the performance of operators during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now Nick Cater – a columnist for The Australian and the Executive Director of the Menzies Research Centre, a Liberal thinktank – has asked the same question in an op-ed comparing the performance of Australian aged care providers to their counterparts overseas.
Reflecting on the experience in Spain, France, Sweden, Canada and the United States – where thousands of aged care residents have died from the virus, Mr Cater writes: “When the commissioners return, they might ask why a supposedly broken aged-care system performed so well in the crisis.”
Despite being a country “in which the aged-care industry is “in crisis”, according to our national broadcaster” and “where the host of its flagship investigative documentary series declared government regulation to be ‘an abject failure’”, he points out that on Sunday Australia only had 12 active cases of COVID-19 in its 2,672 aged care homes.
“When the history is written of Australia’s victory over coronavirus, the early decision to lock down aged-care homes and the dedication of management and staff in protecting those in their charge will provide a template for the rest of the world.”
“It should serve as a template for the protection of all our elderly, particularly those in poor health.”
While the columnist says it only takes one person to carry the virus into a home, public health authorities in Australia are now “exceptionally well equipped” to deal with any outbreak.
“The outbreak at Dorothy Henderson Lodge began in late February when there were fewer than 10 confirmed cases of infection in NSW and Australians were preoccupied with bushfires.”
“The response from NSW Health to the outbreak at the lodge was swift and followed a well-planned, rehearsed drill. Unlike Italy or Spain, there were hospital beds available.”
Mr Cater argues that the critical findings in the Commission’s Interim Report were hardly surprising – but even before the Commission went into hibernation, it was struggling to find examples of systemic failure.
“Failures in the system were once the only thing royal commissions were there to establish.”
“Today, however, they are more often forums for multiple individual complaints that occasionally lead to prosecutions, but more often fail to meet the threshold required for criminal conviction”
“On the evidence so far, the aged-care system has stood up well to the test of a virus that is especially cruel to its clients. Infection control measures commonly imposed during flu seasons were activated at many facilities long before the federal government issued tougher guidelines a week ago.”
He concludes:
“The frontlines of aged care and healthcare are where the battle is being won, not on our parks and beaches where the police are moving people on. If you can stop a person over 70 catching the disease, you are 20 times more likely to save a life than if you keep someone in their 20s or 30s virus-free.”
Will the Royal Commission come to the same conclusion when it resumes its proceedings?
