The Gillard government delivered its aged care reform package last Friday, which has been well received by the aged care sector. The reforms carry broad implications for all Australians, whether we have ageing parents or grandparents or are getting close to retirement age ourselves. For those who work in aged care, the reform package is a sweet and special victory, as it acknowledges that improving the pay, training and staffing levels of the aged care workforce is fundamental to ensuring the best level of care for older people.
There are direct benefits that will roll out over the next few years. Nurses and care staff in the aged care sector have been strained to bursting point in recent years and this injection of $1.2 billion over five years for the workforce can only be a morale booster. The ANF’s Because We Care campaign calls it “a victory for low paid nursing and care staff” and thanked the Prime Minister and Mark Butler, Minister for Ageing, for listening to the Because We Care campaign and National Aged Care Alliance (NACA).
“Currently, nurses in aged care are being paid between $168 and $300 a week less than their colleagues in public hospitals – with a critical shortage of 20,000 nurses”, said Lee Thomas, federal secretary of the ANF (who spoke compellingly on aged care at the National Press Club in Canberra on April 12.)
“This extra funding, delivered through the establishment of the Workforce Compact, will assist in closing the wages gap for aged care nurses and provide nurses with improved career structures and training opportunities.”
If you work in aged care, keep in touch with developments through our Because We Care: Time to Act for Better Pay Facebook page – the campaign isn’t going away, there’s still a lot to be done!
Image credit: NSWNA
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Well, its too late for me. I’m out of Aged Care now, never to return.
I have experienced the worst the Industry has to offer RNs. Both in the For-Profit and Not-For-Profit groups. Both are just as bad as each other, as far as I’m concerned. The way they treat staff is inexcusable. I didn’t go out of way to join their ranks of under-paid RNs, to be told that I must ‘jump’ every time an AIN “requests” me to. At a recent meeting with ( a non-nurse ) manager, I was told I did not “promptly attend to a request by staff to attend to a resident”. Excuse me !! I make the decisions here ! AINs who THINK they should be demanding the RNs do what they feel is best? Management had already made up their mind, BEFORE I was interviewed. When I stated, that said resident has been ‘drug-seeking’ for months now, and that a plan was set, to provide regular panadol, and that at the time of so-called request by AIN … it was a few hours before next dose due. But said AIN casually states resident wants it now, and then complains to management some two weeks later …
Got told by For-Profit group, if you keep defending ‘staff rights’ as a union delegate … we won’t be happy with you. Few months later … I’m gone. Terminated for talking to union on phone during work hours …
These are situations, and many many others, are the REAL reasons RNs & ENs will be leaving Aged Care. If I was really happy in my job, I would put up with a few hundred a week less. No, its more than just the money … its the poor attitude of management against RNs with higher training and education than the managers. My recent Care Manager obtained a hospital cert. in the 1970s and nothing else since !!
Aged care has in some cases had the renowned reputation for being the area apprehensively/begrudgingly taken when acute/subacute ‘proper nursing’ jobs were not plentiful. However it is a relief to slowly see more recognition of this increasingly complex speciality work, with some schemes across the country now introducing aged care graduate programs along with other aged specific scholarship and recruitment initiatives/incentives, to extend aged care as an attractive career commencement option. That said, I blame some employers who continuously under hire staff and rely on AIN’s to replace ENs and RNs; shameful. One facility I worked at was run by AINs with the occasional agency EN and when demanded, the non nurse facility manager permitted a brief RN presence through a District Nursing visit. Mismatched diabetic equipment, disorganised and missing patient files, unexpected medical officer drop ins with almost no communication of changes to medications backed by usual illegible orders…the place was a mess, I never went back. Without nurses to advise and support AINs or employ nursing techniques and knowledge, over dosing, lack of non pharmacological/proven complimentary therapy use i.e. for pain, higher falls incidence, infection control risks & problems and wounds ensue, not to mention rising competition and resentment over vacancies. I have been out of aged care for over three years now, frustrated and amazed at how fast moderate community aged care homes are becoming city corporate run, small hospital sized facilities; no wonder funding suspicions have led to scrutiny announcements. Return nurses to nursing homes, establish very clear practice guidelines for each health care level, implore services to secure and maintain fair skill mixes for clients in reflection of need, prohibit resident intake where staff levels and mixes have not been stable in the preceding short-medium term period and refocus aged care locations back to elderly care sub communities full of unique characters, revered members and valuable citizens who deserve the upmost consideration and best comprehensive care.