Scott Morrison has cut short his trip to Queensland trip to “urgently” address Victoria’s COVID-19 crisis –indicating the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will play a more active role in assisting aged care homes with COVID-19 outbreaks.
“We have just over 80 facilities out of just over 430 in Victoria which have been affected. Not all severely, but some of those cases have been far more severe,” he said.
“And I’ll be returning to Canberra later this morning to engage directly again over the course of this week. I had been planning to be in Queensland for the next few days. Because we really are dealing with a health crisis and we are dealing with an economic crisis.”
The PM added that transferring aged care residents to public and private hospitals if they test positive to COVID-19 is “a very important part of the plan that is being implemented”.
Both the Federal and State health authorities have repeatedly said hospital transfers are on a case-by-case basis.
But Mr Morrison said: “That relieves the stress on those facilities where there are patients – I should say residents – who are able to be accommodated in those facilities in single rooms, in appropriate facilities.”
The PM also said the ADF had been deployed to an aged care home overnight in Melbourne to assist with night shift duties – and hinted there would be more military intervention.
“We’ve got over 1,400 ADF personnel on the ground ... who are available to support that work,” he said.
“Last night in particular, we had ADF officers, nurses, being put into a night shift in a Melbourne facility [Heritage Care’s Epping Gardens home], and we were able to arrange that quite late in the evening, about 11pm,” he said.
“And so, there is no effort being spared to ensure that we can get the people to the places they need to be.”
The move follows the lead of a number of countries overseas including Italy, Belgium and Canada where army personnel have been deployed to aged care homes to provide medical care during the pandemic; some were met with horrific conditions.
The PM concluded by saying that the Federal and State Governments had a “shared responsibility” for Victoria’s aged care sector where quarantine requirements for infected workers had left gaps in rosters.
“And that’s why the Victorian aged care response centre has been set up,” he said.
A hint that the Federal Government won’t be taking over complete control of the Victorian aged care sector?
