The Covid19/Aged Care situation in Victoria is Shameful

While the outbreaks in Victoria Aged Care are predictable, they are nonetheless unacceptable. I'm not blaming Victoria though. NSW has been there, and when the first real waves and 2nd waves really hit the country like Victoria is going through - it will all be our (avoidable) situation.

Given the lockdown has been going for 3 weeks, this should NOT be an issue again as it was in NSW, especially in a location of such a high risk of spreading the disease to the vulnerable. Proper PPE and procedures are clearly not being followed.

If you lock down the sites to minimal visitors (preferably none) (while still providing appropriate contact and support), getting staff to moveless, make sure workers are not going between different facilities, limiting supplier delivery personnel movements (many probably centralise catering for example) - then this would not be an issue.

But we CANNOT abandon them. We can't lock them all up, or as Victoria has been doing - dumping them in the Hospital system. Why isn't the Victoria Health system just sending a team in, take over the place, get it up to code for now, and give it back to the operator when done. Why drown the hospital system with unnecessary load and terrifying the residents in the meantime.

I spent 2 years working in Aged Care (in IT, but I spent a lot of time in the facilities). While the medical staff (Nurses, etc) are normally amazing, it is a different workforce that does most of the labour - catering (which can include hand feeding), resident cleaning (assisted bathing/bathroom, etc), cleaning of the site and so on.

These workers are lowly paid, often immigrants with sub-par English, minimal training, and many who come from cultures where (there is no polite way to say this that won't upset some people) personal hygiene standards that are very different to first-world western standards.

These are the most vulnerable in our society. Every other state, with outbreaks or not, should be enforcing much stricter rules that the government is currently requiring.

Everyone who has someone in Aged Care should be asking VERY serious questions of the management of their facility, and if not getting good answers, reporting them or where possible, remove your most vulnerable for now, caring for them with family - and the government should be providing financial support for this.

I worry about the many group homes with disabled people, many with mental illnesses who don't really comprehend what is happening (I have a friend whose son is struggling to understand the situations).

Neighbourhoods should be implementing local support networks for each other... regularly checking in on everyone. It isn't just the Aged or disabled who need help. Many are struggling to cope with the pressure from routine changes.

We need to do more. We need to care about those most vulnerable. We need to fix the system.

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This is my first article about such topics. But I can't sit here and watch governments (and some businesses) with almost unlimited resources, squander them, put useless people in wrong places, play politics just so they can get elected again.

I have a few more posts such as these to put up. If you want to flame me, go right ahead.

...Skeeve