Coronavirus: More than half of funds for aged surge workers unspent

Authorities have spent only $20m out of a $43m assistance package for staffing shortages in aged-care homes.

Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said the remaining $50.9m of the allocated $101.2m would be used to reimburse costs incurred by aged-care services. Picture: AAP

Federal health authorities have spent only $20m out of a $43m assistance package on dealing with staffing shortages in aged-care homes despite second-wave infections in Victoria forcing a large proportion of workers into isolation.

The $20m, spent since the package was announced in March, represents just less than half of the funding allocated to provide extra workers to aged-care facilities over two years.

This was part of a broader $101m assistance package that will also contribute to developing online training modules and mobile testing clinics in addition to providing additional workforce capacity.

Health experts and the opposition have criticised the funding allocation as inadequate. It has also emerged that more than $5m flowed to a company criticised at the aged-care royal commission over its lack of knowledge in using personal protective equipment, a key element in infection control in healthcare facilities.

Victoria recorded its highest death toll on Monday, with 22 of the 25 fatalities linked to aged-care facilities. A further 1999 active cases have been linked to aged-care homes in the state. Eight Victorian aged-care facilities have clusters of at least 100 COVID-19 cases linked to them.

Workforce shortages have been a critical issue in Victoria as aged-care homes have been confronted with the second wave of the virus. More than 1000 healthcare workers have tested positive to the virus and hundreds more have been forced to isolate as close contacts.

Joseph Ibrahim, head of the health, law and ageing research unit at Monash University’s forensic medicine department, said the $100m figure sounded better than it was. “It sounds like a lot of money but it’s not,” he said. “There are over 250,000 people directly employed in aged care and based on workforce statistics another 200,000 in allied health.

“I don’t think $100m will go very far to cover those numbers over two years and the fact that the sector already gets $13bn a year, it’s not much help.”

Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said the remaining $50.9m of the allocated $101.2m would be used to reimburse costs incurred by aged-care services, including covering extra workforce costs, developing online training modules and mobile testing clinics. “The government’s initial commitment of $101.2m is a significant investment and has been well utilised to date,” Senator Colbeck said. “The commonwealth continues to build capacity in the workforce surge program to ensure that aged care providers impacted by COVID-19 have access to resources to meet their workforce needs and supplement their own workforce should they need to do so.”

Evidence provided to a Senate committee showed that more than $5m of the government’s package went to a Mable, a private company criticised at the aged-care royal commission for “not knowing’’ how to use personal protective equipment.

Anglicare Sydney chief executive Grant Millard told the commission last week that the first Mable responders at Newmarch House did not have any residential aged-care experience or knowledge of how to properly use personal protective equipment. “Now, this was changed over a number of weeks and we were supplied by very capable people but early on they just weren’t up to the task,” he said. “It was dangerous for them.”

Leading Age Services Australia chief executive officer Sean Rooney said facilities were still struggling to cover gaps left when staff were forced to quarantine despite the government’s surge funding.

Opposition aged-care spokeswoman Julie Collins said it was “tragically clear” the government’s surge workforce response had been “completely inadequate”. Counsel assisting the aged-care royal commission Peter Rozen last week excoriated the federal governmen­t’s handling of the sector during COVID-19, saying it had failed to heed the lessons of earlier outbreaks in which 23 residents died at Newmarch House and Dorothy Henderson Lodge in Sydney.