Prime Minister Scott Morrison has admitted finding workers to staff Victoria’s aged care outbreak sites continues to be a challenge as it emerged airline operators are in talks with the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre (VACRC) to establish whether their staff could be retrained to work in homes with outbreaks.
Appearing on Seven News yesterday morning, Mr Morrison said the Centre has a “watch list” of homes they are reviewing daily.
“We’ve been able to take people out of facilities and put them in hospitals. We’ve been able to get access to staff,” he said. However, the PM conceded: “Continuing to get access to staff in aged care is a real challenge.”
Now it has come out that Qantas, Virgin and integrated facilities (cleaning, laundry, catering etc.) services provider Spotless could be re-directing their stood-down workers to aged care.
In a statement, the VACRC said: “CEOs of all major metro and regional hospitals and aged care provider peak bodies have been contacted and briefed to ensure they have the support they need; and the Response Centre is working with Qantas, Virgin and Spotless to consider whether staff can be retrained to support aged care services.”
VACRC executive officer Joe Buffone (pictured above) – who is the former chief officer of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority – said the Centre was responding rapidly to address the 100 COVID-19 aged care outbreaks across Victoria, but five aged care homes already “have reached high-risk status and are considered no longer able to guarantee continuity of care”.
InterCare Training has already partnered with Virgin Australia to place airline staff seeking redeployment in aged care roles.
With the airline announcing yesterday it will lay off a third of its workforce (3,000 employees), is this a viable solution?
