A warning from those who should be in the best position to know.
Associate Professor Michael Murray (pictured giving evidence to the Royal Commission last year in his role as President of the Continence Foundation of Australia), the geriatrician lead at the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre (VACRC), has told The Age that the aged care sector remains unprepared for a major outbreak.
“We are working hard, we are planning, but we are going to need some lead time, because if we get another outbreak in short order, we are in big trouble,” he said.
Assoc Prof Murray said both the State and the Federal Governments had not planned for the high rate of community transmission in Victoria, which saw some COVID negative residents transferred to hospital because their home did not have the resources to care for them.
“The government will say we had a plan, but we hadn’t prepared for a Titanic, we’d prepared for a dinghy,” he added.
“We thought after the first wave we were pretty smart and had this all wrapped up … but of course nobody predicted we’d suddenly be leaking like a sieve.”
Hospital hubs yet to receive any funding
The VACRC is supposed to be coordinating aged care outbreaks through four metropolitan hospital hubs, but doctors say these hubs have yet to receive any funding, with hospitals expected to use existing staff to care for admitted residents.
Aged Care Minister, Senator Richard Colbeck told the paper that every aged care facility was linked to a hub and the hubs were expected to be able to “provide an immediate, coordinated and intensive response to an outbreak of COVID-19 within the facility”.
However, a Federal Government spokesperson said there were still ongoing negotiations between the States and Federal Governments about training staff within the hubs.
As we covered here, the Royal Commission’s recent report into Australia’s COVID outbreaks in aged care had criticised the lack of a national aged care plan for the sector.
While the Federal Government has taken up its recommendation for a national aged care advisory body, the revelations by the doctors suggest a considerable amount of ‘baton passing’ is still taking place in Victoria – and residents, families and staff will be the ones who will suffer.
