Aged care crisis: Australia struggling to get foreign workers

Australia’s aged care workers are suffering from burnout as they desperately need changes to keep their workers. This is why.

Overseas workers needed to plug the aged care workforce gap have not returned since the borders reopened, with fears the staffing crisis will get even worse during the winter flu season.

Ciaran Foley, who is the chief executive of a not-for-profit aged care facility in Sydney, said a number of elements, including Covid restrictions, meant that staffing levels across the country were down by 20 to 30 per cent.

He said the government needed to promote Australia overseas as a good place to live and work and reassure potential migrant workers that they won’t be locked down again if there were further Covid variant outbreaks, which he believed was putting some off.

“There’s been zero impact on the workforce crisis since the borders opened,” he said.

“We have spoken to nursing and staffing agencies who say people are coming back into the country very, very slowly in small numbers.”

He warned that the situation would get worse during the flu season with the level of fatigue among staff already extremely high.

“We are all feeling it,” he said.

Ciaran Foley, CEO of Allambie Heights Village, says staffing levels are down up to 30 per cent around Australia. Picture: Nikki Short

Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) CEO Paul Sadler said his organisation, the peak body for not-for-profit aged care facilities, had called on the government to implement a plan for foreign workers to fill vacancies on a short and long-term basis where a local workforce was not available.

He also said ACSA supported personal care workers being added to the skilled migration list.

“We look to the next government to prioritise the creation and training of an Australian workforce via real wage increases and training to assist people into aged care,” Mr Sadler said.

Aged and Community Services Australia CEO Paul Sadler wants the government to help bring in foreign workers.

Aged care worker Mandy Smith, 58, from the Gold Coast, has been taking part in the recent national strike over pay and conditions.

She said she is often asked to pick up extra shifts and on her days off all she can do is lie on the sofa in pyjamas.

“Everyone is completely burnt out and emotionally stressed,” Ms Smith said.

“We can be working for 18 hours with just half an hour break.

“People doing double shifts are then getting sick, so then someone needs to cover their shifts.”

Aged care staff are “burnt out and emotionally stressed”. Picture: istock

The job website Indeed, showed there were more than 13,000 jobs relating to aged care currently on offer.

The latest government data showed that there was Covid in 775 facilities across the country, 3400 active cases among residents and 2000 among staff.

United Workers Union aged care director Carolyn Smith said while international students and the migrant workforce had always been an important part of the aged care workforce mix, all workers needed “access to stable, secure jobs with the skills and the time to care for aged care residents”.

“We have seen overseas workers are vulnerable to exploitation, and if that occurred that would make the sector worse, not better,” Ms Smith said.