Aged care homes in rapid antigen test shortage as case numbers, deaths rise

Bosses at an aged care home with 200 plus active cases have told of their inability to get hold of rapid antigen tests, resulting in staff inadvertently bringing Omicron through the front doors.

A shortage of rapid antigen tests has left some of the state’s most Covid ravaged aged care homes unable to test staff as case numbers and deaths surge across the sector.

Staff at St Sergius Aged Care in Cabramatta have spoken of dire challenges in their ability to screen employees prior to starting shifts as soaring demand for the testing kits has seen once plentiful supply lines dry up.

As of last Friday, the aged care home had 113 active Covid cases among residents, 91 in staff and eight deaths.

It is one of more than 500 facilities currently recording active outbreaks.

The home, run by the Russian Relief Association of St Sergius of Radonezh, was virus free as recently as December 29 before the arrival of Omicron saw case numbers surge.

Dr Andrew Pesce.

Dr Andrew Pesce, a board member of the facility who also works as a clinical network director at Westmead Hospital, said the ability to maintain secure testing capabilities had proved a major challenge.

“We feel our preparation was strong but we never expected the outbreak to spread so quickly and to have so many numbers of staff and residents affected within a few weeks despite following all precautions,” he said.

The home said sourcing of RATs had been “the major issue”.

Dr Pesce said: “Prior to the outbreak we bought 4000 rapid antigen tests and all of a sudden what seemed to be a good supply rapidly diminished.

“We’ve been doing about 220 tests for staff each day and in the absence of not being able to resupply we’ve ended up in situations where we were unable to perform the daily RATs on all staff arriving for work.

“On several occasions we were forced to only test residents when they exhibited symptoms.

St Sergius cares for 168 residents.

“There’s also been times where results of PCR tests took four to five days to be reported back.

“These are issues common to all residential aged care facilities.”

The demand for testing capabilities has been partly accelerated by a new Department of Health framework allowing close and casual contacts of Covid cases to return to work on conditions including undergoing rapid antigen testing.

Mr Pesce said the home had made requests to source testing kits from the Federal Government’s emergency stocks but at times was told supply was unavailable.

“If everyone had their time again there would have been a recognition that many more rapid antigen testing kits were needed than we ended up having – especially given the relatively high mortality rate for older people and the serious implications for residential aged care,” he said.

“We should have always been a very high priority.”

Rapid antigen tests have been hard to come by in recent months.

In a statement, the Department of Health said it has delivered more than seven million testing kits to aged care facilities across Australia to date.

“This will continue. In addition to the use of RATs, where there is an outbreak residential aged care facilities are also utilising PCR testing,” a spokeswoman said.

“Supply of RATs is an urgent and immediate focus of national cabinet. More than 200 million of these tests have been ordered by the commonwealth, states and territories, and will arrive through this month and next.

“Delivery of rapid antigen test kits is currently being prioritised to facilities in outbreak or recent exposure.”

Mr Pesce said the rapid surge in cases at St Sergius Aged Care has placed added pressure on its workforce.

“We’ve had staff working 12 hour shifts and double shifts to make sure that we have got care and services for our residents (and) many staff have also been deployed from different positions including executive roles to help on the floor,” he said.

“Despite all efforts we have been plagued with staff shortages and many staff are exhausted working with full PPE.”

Dr Andrew Pesce also works at Westmead Hospital.

Like many facilities battling active outbreaks, the home has various measures to limit the spread including documenting ‘red areas’ where residents have had Covid, while virus-free areas are designated ‘green zones’.

Mr Pesce said there had been further challenges around the uptake of vaccination among residents and their family members.

“100 per cent of staff and 82 per cent of residents are fully vaccinated and despite a lot of encouragement not all our community supports vaccination and many did not consent to vaccination when offered,” he said.

“You can’t force people to have vaccines but we’ve strongly encouraged it

St Sergius Aged Care is located in Cabramatta

“Fortunately – if there’s one positive to come out of the Omicron – it’s the large number of our residents haven’t been ill enough to require transfer to hospital – of the positive cases, we’ve had to transfer 10-20 to hospital which is nothing compared to what could have happened with the Delta variant.

“The vast majority of residents (who contracted the virus) have also recovered.”

Mr Pesce said the facility has been working closely with the Federal Government, public health unit, South West Sydney Liverpool Health District and the Aged Care Quality Safety Commission with meetings scheduled every two days as part of its ongoing management plan.

“Safety of all residents has been a major consideration during the outbreak and we’ve focused strongly on ensuring that all residents are providing adequate pressure care, falls prevention, continence management and socialisation,” he said.

“Everyone’s doing what they can and the way which our staff have responded has been fantastic – they have gone above and beyond and we all owe them a great debt of gratitude.”