Aged care providers estimate about a quarter of all shifts – or the equivalent of 140,000 shifts a week – are going unfilled, while the disability sector has reported roster vacancies of up to 30% during the peak of Omicron.
The ongoing staff shortages – which the government this week sought to address with $400 retention payments – have sparked widespread calls for the government to do more for both the stretched aged care and disability care workforce.
The disability sector, whose carers are not eligible for the government payment, says its carers will miss out on the bonus despite doing equivalent work to that in aged care under similarly stressed conditions.
Workers for large home care providers who look after people in both aged care and disability will also be financially penalised for their NDIS clients, with one organisation estimating that up to 40% of its staff will receive no bonus at all.
Both the disability and aged care sectors are struggling with workforce shortages, with the National Disability Services chief executive, Laurie Leigh, telling Guardian Australia that up to 30% of shifts could not be filled in the first two weeks of January as the Omicron wave peaked.
“When you are getting up past sort of 20% or so of your workforce absent on any one day, that is extreme, and it means that providers are having to make difficult decisions about what shifts they can fill and what essential services have to be done,” Leigh said.
“That’s put a lot of pressure on both individual workers in terms of the extra hours that they’ve been putting in, and on providers in terms of some of the costs around extra overtime and agency staff.”
Leigh said the $400 bonus payments to aged care workers “did not scratch the surface” of what was needed in that sector, but disability care workers would receive nothing at all.
“Looking at it from a disability sector, it’s a workforce that does very similar work in terms of supporting vulnerable people, it is a workforce that has been working as hard through the same sort of conditions that the aged care workforce has, but it’s a workforce that we don’t see having the same sort of recognition,” she said.
“It’s the sense that, once again, the disability sector has kind of come in second to the aged care sector and that there’s more recognition in that sector of the needs than there is for even the start of a conversation in the disability sector.”
Stuart Miller from myHomecare Group, which represents about 10 providers servicing more than 20,000 people in residential care, said that while he welcomed the retention bonus, it did not do anything to address structural issues in the sector.
“It is a sugar rush because it is all about retention, it’s not about actually giving these people what they deserve. I will take that help, but it doesn’t fix things structurally,” Miller told Guardian Australia.
He also said that up to 40% of his staff may not receive the payment, with carers having a combination of home care clients whose services may not be covered by the eligible programs and being financially penalised as a result.
“In our organisation, as the largest provider, I’ve got people who work for veterans, I’ve got people who work for disability, or people who work for workers’ compensation and they’re not entitled to it (the payment) because it’s not federally funded,” he said.
“There’s people in the office who are care managers who aren’t necessarily giving direct contact care, but are talking to our clients and managing their care, but those people aren’t necessarily going to be eligible either.”
He also said providers were being burdened with the additional paperwork to administer the scheme, needing to calculate how many hours of care a worker had undertaken with certain clients to qualify for the payments.
“I want to make sure our staff get everything they’re entitled to on this, but it won’t quite be what everyone thinks it will be. This is more spin than anything else.”
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The concern about the payments from the disability sector has also been raised by aged care providers, who say many workers will be excluded from the retention bonus program, including reception, lifestyle and maintenance staff, and all those employed for the Commonwealth Home Support Program.
“It is definitely unfair when these people are providing services to people in very similar conditions,” the chief executive of Aged & Community Services Australia, Paul Sadler, said.
Sadler said that provider surveys had revealed staff shortages of between 15% and 50% since the Omicron wave hit, with the 25% average figure to be released in a situation report for the sector on Tuesday.
“This has been at a level unprecedented,” Sadler said.
“From our point of view it’s absolutely a crisis in aged care, and we have been calling for urgent help from the government, including from the Australian Defence Force, and from whatever other sources we can to provide support.”
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The situation report says that while the government had been able to provide some support with a “surge” workforce of about 1,000 shifts a week, the scale was “clearly insufficient” to meet demand.
“This seems unlikely to be resolved in the near future,” the report says.
“Government has been working for several weeks on avenues to fill staffing shortages, including volunteers, private hospital staff, and retired and student nurses.
“Unfortunately, there is no sign of a surge workforce that might approach the scale needed to address the current crisis. We ask families and clients for their support during this difficult time. Staff and providers are doing absolutely everything they can with the resources they have available.”
The report says the sector had been advised that the idea of using the military for support “has been explored as an option but is not considered viable”.
The latest figures from the Department of Health showed there were 23,900 active Covid cases within the aged care system across 1,261 residential aged care facilities. That included more than 14,000 staff and close to 9,000 residents.
In January alone, 499 aged care residents died from Covid – more than the total number of aged care residents who passed away in 2021.
