Coronavirus: nursing homes slam door on PM’s demand to allow visitors

Aged care providers will rebuff Scott Morrison’s demand to open up nursing homes to daily visits from residents’ loved ones.

‘Lack of access for family members … has been the most prominent source of complaint in recent weeks’: Senior Australians Senator Richard Colbeck.

Aged-care providers will rebuff Scott Morrison’s demand to open up nursing homes to daily visits from residents’ loved ones, setting up a showdown over the care and treatment of those most vulnerable to COVID-19.

A coalition of provider representatives will on Monday reject the Prime Minister’s threat to impose regulations forcing nursing homes to open their doors if they don’t comply with the government’s current recommendation to allow residents two visitors per day of family or close contacts.

But Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said the sector’s push back on visitation arrangements in nursing homes was “misguided”, saying “lack of access for family members … has been the most prominent source of complaint in recent weeks”.

The provider group, representing most of the nation’s 2600 for-profit and not-for-profit facilities, said the tighter visitation rules homes introduced in response to the coronavirus pandemic struck the right balance between protecting the frail elderly and supporting their mental health and wellbeing.

And they hit back at Mr Morrison’s warning not to let aged-care facilities become “secret places” where residents are left stuck in their rooms. “It is incorrect to characterise the sector as having kept residents isolated, under lock and key, in their rooms. Nor are they secret places,” the provider groups, including Aged and Community Services Australia, Aged Care Guild, Anglicare, Catholic Health and Leading Age Services Australia, said.

“There are widespread communications with families, visits at a distance and extensive social media connections. Our members report surveys showing the vast majority of families support the current approach to restricted visitations by their aged-care homes.”

Aged-care providers are upset about the Prime Minister’s sharp rebuke of the sector on Friday in a post-national cabinet address. A subsequent meeting between providers, Mr Colbeck and Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy was understood to be tense, with no ground given by either side. Mr Colbeck said providers should accept the current recommendations, which reflect the advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee and are supported by national cabinet.

“The pushback against the Prime Minister’s recommendations on visitation access for residential care facilities is misguided,” he said on Sunday.

“It is just not conscionable that some senior Australians may never have personal contact with their loved ones again.

“The attempt by the sector to quote surveys of families who say they support the total shutdown does not change the advice of the AHPPC, which also takes into ­account the wider needs of residents, particularly those with dementia or in the end-of-life phase.”

Nursing homes are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Six people have died from an outbreak at Anglicare’s Newmarch House nursing home in Sydney, with 31 of the 100 residents infected along with 17 staff. At the Dorothy Henderson Lodge, also in Sydney, six elderly residents have died from the disease.