As COVID-19 continues to spread throughout Victoria’s aged care homes, the Director of the Australian Health Services Research Institute at the University of Wollongong has urged government to get residents out of infected homes and deep clean the facilities on the ABC’s PM program.
Professor Eagar – who penned the Royal Commission’s first research paper into staffing levels in Australian aged care facilities and how they compare to other countries, which made a strong argument for minimum staffing levels in October last year – states that the spread was “completely preventable” and while she agrees the extra staff being deployed into aged care will help slow it down, it won’t solve the system’s larger structural failures.
“Newmarch in NSW was an unmitigated disaster with a mortality rate of 48%, and you would like to believe that people would have learned that lesson,” Professor Eagar told host Linda Mottram.
The Professor cites insufficient funding, inadequate staff numbers and unskilled workers often working across multiple sites for the high number of cases.
“Poorly-designed facilities are not designed for the high level of frailty we are now seeing in aged care,” she said.
“Infection control should be core business for every aged care facility.”
Asked whether there was a difference between the public and private aged care sector in the capacity to manage infections, Professor Eagar said that the public system has mandated staff requirements and ratios, which has resulted in a very small number of COVID-19 cases.
“All of the big outbreaks have been in the private nursing homes,” she said.
Her advice is to close down a home as soon as it has one to two cases. The facility should then undergo deep cleaning and everyone should be tested, returning only when they are safe.
This strategy applies to any congregational living situation, “but for some reason we treat aged care homes differently,” she said.
The question is: where will all those residents go while those measures are being undertaken?
You can listen to the full program here.
