This year, Australia’s federal government announced $2.2 billion (US$1.4 billion) in funding to bolster aged care services nationwide, part of a wider $12.6 billion effort for the sector.
The budget announcement outlined several target areas including addressing wait times for home care packages, bolstering the industry’s workforce, enhancing the safety regulator, and upgrading technology.
Yet a university study says the funding is not achieving its goals.
The University of Technology Sydney’s Ageing Research Collaborative found that nearly two-thirds of residential aged care facilities had not met mandatory care targets, despite making profits and receiving government funding.
Currently, residents of aged care facilities must receive around 200 minutes of direct care daily, including 40 minutes with a registered nurse.
The university’s study claimed 63.9 percent of aged care facilities making profits, were pocketing government funds for those 200 hours, rather than using them to fulfil their obligations.
Advocates for the elderly, including the Older Person’s Advocacy Network and Council on the Ageing, have called on the government to act on a new legal framework that would make it harder for providers to use funds at their own discretion.
Introducing a new aged care act was the first recommendation of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Royal Commission, and many believe the suggested framework could provide greater transparency.
Union Fears Funds Won’t Be Policed By Government
It’s a concern for the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), which fears the government’s planned 15 percent pay rise for aged care workers could end up with businesses rather than staff.ANMF federal secretary Annie Butler said without a legal framework to determine where aged care facilities spend their funds, any effort to improve the industry would be lost.
“While we’re pleased that the government has delivered on its promise to increase aged care wages, our big concern is that many nursing home operators won’t pass on the money intended for workers,” she said in a statement.
“We have good reason to be concerned about this because this is what has happened for the last 30 years when consecutive governments have given private aged care operators almost $2.5 billion, specifically to boost wages.”
Ms. Butler said there was a real risk that any money granted from the government to the aged care industry would only reach the business’s bottom line.
“We know that some operators will do the right thing and use the money for wages, but the government cannot give it to providers on trust,” she said.
The Epoch Times has contacted the office for the federal aged care minister, Anika Wells, for comment, as well as the Aged Care Industry Association, which said no one was available to comment at that time.
