Concern that the Royal Commission’s findings may not provide the funding relief required.
One of the webinar participants also raised the critical question: how will COVID-19 impact on the Government’s ability to provide a substantial response to the Royal Commission’s Final Report due in November?
“That’s certainly going to be a big challenge for the sector,” LASA’s Policy and Advocacy General Manager, Tim Hicks acknowledged.
He agreed that LASA’s expectation prior to the pandemic was that the Government would provide a “substantial response”.
“The only question would be the specifics and … how big that response was going to be,” he said.
“I think what COVID-19 does is it pushes the probability of a relatively modest response up significantly.”
“I don’t think there’s any chance of the sector getting nothing but it really emphasises the importance of us as a sector … making sure aged care is a high priority issue over the next six to nine months so when the Government’s looking at all the different priorities, potentially ahead of a Federal election, they’ll see that aged care is actually somewhere where they need to spend a little bit of coin in order to address a pressing issue that’s out there in the community.”
“I think our ability to do that, which is something we’ve struggled with historically, will be what determines the level of support the sector is likely to receive just as much as the Royal Commission recommendations themselves,” Tim concluded.
It’s a key issue for the months ahead. The aged care sector has clearly been hit at multiple levels by COVID – workforce, cash, new customers, operating costs, ‘wear and tear’ on staff and at breaking point.
What is required is a national Parliament type approach with people who have a simple game plan that is easily communicated and not is necessarily fixated on the dollars.
Is it time for the sector to present initiatives that are respect-building with Government, capitalising on the good job that it has done over the pandemic?
