Regis Healthcare has informed the ASX that the COVID-19 outbreaks in its aged care homes from 1 January to 30 April have cost $14 million.
The listed provider is in the process of preparing claims to the Department of Health for rebates and anticipates that further COVID-19 related outbreak costs will be incurred in both May and June.
It also revealed that only $3.3 million of the $4.5 million of COVID-related costs during the first half of the current financial year were eligible for the Australian Government COVID-19 outbreak grant and had been approved for payment.
Regis Healthcare, similar to Estia Health earlier this month, does not expect to receive the rebate for the first four months of 2022 by 30 June.
The number of cases of the coronavirus in residents and staff and the number of active outbreaks in aged care homes appears to have plateaued.
There were 5,320 cases of COVID (3,321 residents and 1,999 staff) in 761 aged care homes on 13 May, which is a slight fall for the third successive week.
Sadly, another 65 aged care residents died between 6 May and 13 May – a total of 239 resident deaths in the past three weeks. The death rate did drop from 89 the previous week.
Of the residents with the Omicron variant:
- 1,115 are in NSW;
- 992 in VIC;
- 392 in QLD;
- 339 in WA;
- 317 in SA;
- 93 in TAS;
- 65 in the ACT; and
- 8 in the NT.
On 12 May, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) had 225 personnel deployed across 33 residential aged care homes with staffing issues.
