Health union blasts Covid-19 vaccine rollout ‘debacle’

A second nursing home resident has tested positive for Covid-19 as the Morrison government again came under intense pressure.

Healthcare workers transport a person into a patient transport vehicle at the Arcare Maidstone nursing home in Melbourne’s west on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

A second nursing home resident has tested positive for Covid-19 in Victoria’s latest outbreak as the Morrison government again came under intense pressure over its handling of aged care during the pandemic.

The 89-year-old man at the ­Arcare Maidstone nursing home in Melbourne’s west was transferred to hospital on Wednesday after being confirmed with the virus, joining a 99 year-old woman from the same facility who tested positive on Monday.

Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck said the man had been fully vaccinated, and was ­asymptomatic. “The resident initially had … an indeterminate test, then had a negative test, and then was retested and is now positive,” he told Senate estimates on ­Wednesday.

“The advice I have is that the resident is asymptomatic,” he said. “The vaccine … won’t necessarily prevent you from contracting the virus but the evidence we’ve received is that it will protect you from serious illness, and can we all trust that … is the outcome … for this gentleman.”

Two care workers at the Maidstone facility have also tested positive, with one also doing shifts at another home, the BlueCross Western Gardens nursing home in nearby Sunshine. One had not been vaccinated.

The low vaccination rate of aged-care workers continued to plague the Morrison government after revelations on Tuesday it did not know how many workers had received the jab, despite listing them as category 1(a), the most ­urgent category.

Aged Care Minister Greg Hunt told parliament on Wednesday that about 17 per cent of commonwealth aged-care workers, more than 40,000, had received one dose of the vaccine through its “in-reach” program, and of those 34,930 were fully vaccinated.

The exact number remains unclear as data on workers vaccinating through other channels has not been collated.

Worker representatives said they have been blindsided by the government’s revelations that its plan to vaccinate workers alongside aged-care residents facility by facility had changed months ago.

Health Services Union national secretary Lloyd Williams blasted the aged-care rollout as an “absolute debacle”, saying unions first learned of the government‘s decision to alter the plan during estimates on Wednesday.

“Unions and the workforce had been led to believe they would be vaccinated through in-reach by these private providers and have since learned that’s simply not the case,” he said. “They identified these workers as tier (1a) back in February. We are now in June and we’re finding literally thousands of aged-care and disability workers who haven’t been vaccinated.

“It’s a complete abrogation of responsibility and now the only option we have is to call on the state governments to mop up the commonwealth’s mess,” he said.

Senator Colbeck told estimates the plan changed because inter­national evidence had shown vaccinating workers and residents at the same time created workforce availability issues. The rollout to workers at nursing homes was also complicated by the change to the rules around AstraZeneca not being available to under-50s,

Leading Age Services Australia chief Sean Rooney said the rollout into aged care had been hallmarked by nothing but dis­appointment, frustration and confusion. “It should be a national priority to do all we can,” he said.

“Aged-care workers were told they were front of the queue in phase 1a and now here we are. We don’t even know who has been vaccinated and who hasn’t. Clearly the (government’s) rhetoric hasn’t translated into reality.”