Ann Wason Moore: Reality of aged care living in Australia after Miami tragedy

Like an elderly Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy played out in our own fair city that lays bare our ailing aged care system. While major reform is due, it can’t come soon enough

The sad story of the passing of a couple in Miami lays bare the state of our aged care system.

Like an elderly Romeo and Juliet, a terrible tragedy played out in our own fair city last week.

On Thursday afternoon, emergency services were called to a unit on Great Hall Drive in Miami where they found a married couple, an 81-year-old man and 79-year-old woman, deceased.

Detective Inspector Mark Mooney said the couple’s daughter was visiting to help relocate her parents into a nursing home in Victoria, when she made the heart-wrenching discovery in their bedroom.

It was understood the elderly woman was suffering with dementia and her husband had recently been released from hospital after having hip issues which made him lose his mobility.

Mr Mooney said police found a typed note during their investigations.

“The note indicates that they weren’t interested in moving into a home,” he said.

Detective Inspector Mark Mooney. Picture: Alex Treacy.

More even than the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s shocking findings of elder abuse and neglect, this distressing scene lays bare the state of our aged care system.

While the new Aged Care Act is set to commence from July 1 this year, described as a once-in-a-generation reform based on the Royal Commission’s recommendations, it cannot come soon enough.

Just two months ago, the release of the 2024 Queensland Aged Care Home Star Ratings Guide showed a third of Queensland aged care homes were performing worse than they did the previous year.

While almost six in 10 saw an improvement in their Star Rating, Older Person’s Advocacy Network CEO Craig Gear said people were telling them the ratings did not accurately reflect the quality of care provided to residents and that it “leads older people into a false sense of security”.

And even as changes are slowly being made, the fear is still far too real in our community.

Anyone who has had any interaction with the aged care industry understands an overhaul of both the system and our perception of it is a mammoth task.

I have seen first-hand the pressures placed on workers, the overwhelming understaffing, the extreme needs of residents and the intense and intimate work that comes with that.

I have seen burnout, I have seen medical needs overlooked and ignored, although not necessarily wilfully, I have seen that every patient needs an advocate, yet few have access.

Much like our child care workers, we expect these workers to do the heavy lifting when it comes to our most precious people – our babies and our parents and grandparents – and then wonder why quality falters when they work under harsh conditions and for incredibly low pay.

Even despite this, there are so many amazing people working in these facilities – but they, like our loved ones, are in danger of falling through the cracks.

After two years of Royal Commission hearings, and even with the Aged Care Act about to come into effect, we need to keep up the pressure.

We can’t think that this job is done yet.

We can’t forget about the lives of our elders.

We need this system to function – for the sake of our seniors and the sake of ourselves.

The couple were found at the Magic Mountain Apartments. Picture: David Kelly.

My heart breaks for the daughter of this Miami couple.

Not only did she face the trauma of finding her parents, but clearly she was actively trying to help her parents in this next, difficult stage of their life.

Caring is incredibly difficult, carers can often suffer psychological, mental, emotional and even physical distress.

I have been blessed with a mother who, in her mid-80s, is still in great health, and I pray we will never have to make a decision about aged care.

But if that day comes, we need a system that allows a choice without shame, guilt and fear.

Aged care needs to be an option that is not viewed as a death sentence.

“More than a quarter of a million older Australians live in residential aged care, but few choose to be there, few consider it their ‘home’, and most will die there after living there for an average 22.8 months,” wrote Edith Cowan University Professor of Nursing and Centre for Research in Aged Care director Davina Porock in 2021.

Now, obviously the vast majority of those who go into care do not have an extensive life expectancy, but we need to do all we can to make sure those years can still be filled with happiness, connection and community … and, at the very least, safety and security.

We also need to further explore the last option we have as elders: Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD).

Currently, anyone with dementia is ineligible for VAD, despite this being probably the most feared diagnosis for any senior.

Without decision-making capacity, there is no easy answer for this exclusion, but we owe it to ourselves to fully explore the alternatives.

Ever since I was a teenager, when my father died at just 58 years old, I have always believed that ageing is a privilege.

And that’s true … until it isn’t.

We should never have to suffer something like that tragic scene in Miami as our own unhappy ending.

Originally published as Ann Wason Moore: Reality of aged care living in Australia after Miami tragedy