Distraught families fear for loved ones as Covid’s third wave hits aged care

Covid-ravaged aged care facilities are calling in the army again to help deal with with more than 7,900 active cases. See the full list of every NSW aged care facility with outbreaks.

Army nurses are being rolled out to aged care facilities as Covid’s third wave burns through the vulnerable sector with more than 7900 active cases across 857 outbreaks.

ADF staff are being sent out to residential aged care to plug the gap as staff fall ill with Covid’s infectious new strains and the scheme could be extended beyond its August deadline as experts warn the third wave has just begun.

While the mission is still running, the number of personnel deployed has whittled down to 15 deployed nationally as of recent days, compared to 121 personnel in NSW on a single day across 21 facilities toward the end of February.

NSW is battling the biggest share of Covid clusters with 275 facilities impacted as of last week.

The outbreaks have crippled the sector including facilities like Autumn Lodge in Macksville, where anxious families claimed patients were going without food because staff are falling ill to the infection’s new variants BA. 4 and BA.5.

Industry peak body, Aged Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) called on the federal government to extend the presence of the military past the mid-August end date.

ACCPA interim chief executive Paul Sadler said the figures were set to “continue to go up over the next few weeks as the community transmission accelerates”.

“Our genuine concern is that the next few weeks could see us return to those levels of 30 per cent of rosters being unfilled across home care and residential care with the consequent impact on the care of older people,” he said.

Most recent government figures recorded 96 cases at Autumn Lodge – with that number expected to have risen since Friday.

One angry family told The Daily Telegraph “the horse had bolted” and resident care was being impacted.

Another said their loved one “didn’t get anything to eat from 5pm until 1pm” before being served “cold congealed” pasta.

More than 850 facilities are battling Covid outbreaks across the country. Picture: Supplied

“It’s actually frightening”. Picture: Supplied

“It is actually frightening,” they said.

“The first couple of messages, they were upfront and transparent. Now, you can’t get any information. They’ve put the barricades up. I don’t have any control,” a second source said.

Operator Nambucca Valley Care denied the impact on patient care: “All residents are receiving scheduled meals within the accepted time frames, with additional resources being made available if a resident is unable to receive a meal at the designated time,” spokeswoman said.

“Every step has been taken to reduce the risk of exposure to the virus for our valued residents and staff.”

Aged care Minister Anika Wells. Picture: Zak Simmonds

Aged Care Minister Annika Wells has signalled she will be open to extending the ADF presence beyond August and the health department was “increasing the pool of deployable surge workforce available to facilities with an outbreak”.

“Minister Butler and I wrote to providers on 9 June instructing them to urgently increase the number of residents receiving their fourth COVID vaccine,” Ms Well said.

A Department of Health and Aged Care spokesman said a team of ADF personnel had been deployed to Autumn Lodge on July 8 and remained on site for a week.

Australian Army nurse Captain Chanel Aguilar (left) supervises Lance Corporal Lachlan Scott as he dons personal protective equipment during the Australian Defence Force support to aged care introductory training at RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia.

WESTERN SYDNEY NURSES TO WALK OFF THE JOB

Frustrated nurses and midwives at two major Western Sydney hospitals will walk off the job on Monday over anger at rising work loads.

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) members working across intensive care, operating theatres, general wards and emergency departments at Westmead and Blacktown hospitals will walk off at 7.30am as many come off night shift.

The union said staff were frustrated the rise of flu and Covid presentations which was causing “overcrowding in emergency department waiting rooms”.

NSWNMA secretary Brett Holmes said the nurses were taking the action “largely in their own time” as they come off shift and would not cause any more disruption “than necessary”.

“They are leaving shift and coming out to show their level of frustration and concern. It appears management wants to be pleasing the government by denying the experience of both patients and the staff at Western Sydney,” he said.

“They’ve experienced weeks of massive bed blocks, caring for patients who are waiting for beds in the waiting room with up to 40 people in those situations.”

Mr Holmes said the hospital crisis was “not going to get better” until policies are changed.

“The government wants to put their head in the sand and the public keeps expecting that the health system is back to normal when it’s bloody not,” he said.

“I hold great fears that our system will fall, our members are falling. They can’t keep turning up.”

Originally published as Distraught families fear for loved ones as Covid’s third wave hits aged care