Older Australians were left worse off by government initiatives developed during the pandemic, an independent review has found.
The report, Fault Lines, published by the Paul Ramsey Foundation and two other philanthropic organisations, delivers five “overarching lessons” and identifies four areas in which Australia “should have done better”.
One of those four focuses specifically on seniors, stating: “Older Australians should have been better protected.”
Report lead author Professor Peter Shergold said the adverse impacts of COVID meant that the quality of life for many older Australians was undeniably compromised.
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“During COVID-19, policies were too often designed and implemented without proper regard for the inequalities that already existed in our society and the challenges facing particular communities,” Prof. Shergold said.
Along with older Australians, the report identifies women, people living with a disability, children, First Nations people and ESL (English as a second language) migrants as being adversely affected by the government’s approach.
“Our failure to adequately address disadvantage undermined the effectiveness and fairness of our response,” said Prof. Shergold, adding that the pandemic brought Australia’s societal fault lines into sharp focus.
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The report states: “There was a gap between knowing that we need to account for societal fault lines and putting in place effective measures to address them.
“In some instances, this flowed from wrong-headed policies, such as … preventing elderly people in aged care facilities from accessing hospital care when they had COVID-19.”
The report’s focus on older Australians acknowledges that part of the reason their care was compromised were existing faults within the infrastructure.
According to the report: “Older Australians should have been better protected. The problems in aged care were well known before the pandemic.
“Many of these problems have their roots in the sad reality that Australia’s aged care system depersonalises older people. Funding was inadequate. The labour force was stretched.”
Referring to the findings of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the report says Australia entered the pandemic with an aged care sector in disarray.
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“Many independent older people requiring support at home were waiting in long queues for access to federal government Home Care Packages appropriate to their needs,” the report states. “Aged care homes were grossly underfunded. Frontline workers were already overworked.”
Not allowing aged care residents with COVID to be transferred to hospital had devastating consequences, said the report’s authors.
“Fixing aged care requires changed attitudes. The decision to restrict aged care residents from going to hospital when they contracted COVID-19 was a mistake that cost lives.
“Restrictions on visits to aged care homes, long past the end of the outbreak, caused unnecessary pain and distress.”
The report said that decision resulted in COVID becoming more widespread in aged care communities.
“Our consultations suggest that if some ill residents had been swiftly transferred from care communities to available beds in hospitals, the spread of infection – and associated deaths – would have been far lower.”
The report offers six recommendations to address key issues, which it says will enable “a more effective response to our next health crisis by ensuring that fault lines are recognised from the outset”.
It says we must:
- strengthen crisis preparation, planning and testing
- establish an expert body and trusted voice on public health
- improve government decision-making through advice and greater transparency
- enhance public service collaboration, capability and communication
- modernise how governments use data
- build a culture of real-time evaluation and learning in the public sector.
What was your experience of the aged care sector’s handling of COVID? What could our governments have done better? Why not share your experience and thoughts in the comments section below?
The main problem with the governments dealing with Covid was that although there was a national cabinet, each state then went away and did what they wished, quite often in opposition to what was agreed at the national cabinet. State premiers made the pandemic political which was a disadvantage to the public bit advantageous to their chances of re-election. Any problems at state level were then blamed on the PM.