Scott Morison promised to add only $362m for residential Aged Care, but offered:

• $2.2 Billion road safety 29^th March
• $10 billion (Joint venture Victorian Govt.) airport rail link 13/3/2019
• $3.5 Billion climate solutions
• $5.3 Billion transport infrastructure spent in South Australia (last 5 years)
• $4.2 Billion in Foreign Aid in 2018

The aged care section is besieged under the burden of massive under funding, causing all manor of quality problems. The Royal Commission will only highlight more of the problems, but will it fix them?

The ONLY thing that will fix the problems is to fund for more staff, better pay rates, and fund more qualified nurses in the system.

E.g. If we used last years foreign aid budget to pay for more staff, using the “public health system Nurses State Award” it would fund in an average 66 bed aged care facility:

3 extra registered nurses over 3 shifts a day (1 each morning, afternoon & night) PLUS
3 extra Enrolled nurse over 3 shifts a day PLUS
9 extra Aged care nurses (day & afternoon shifts)

I.e. an 11 extra nurses (including RN’s & EN’s) for each shift except overnight at every aged care facility.
This would go a long way to getting rid of the so-called neglect delivered by simply not enough staff.

Will either of the major political parties have the guts to pay for a world class aged care system or will the Government be more prepared to provide a world class “aid” system to other countries?

Where do you want your hard-earned tax dollars being spent? On rail projects in Victoria or on a better aged care system? On foreign aid or on more staff, more nurses and better-quality nurses in aged care? Tell your local member where you want your tax dollars spent, you have the right to say something.

It is very easy to be critical of the Government, and I know it is all about prioritizing the money available to be spent on many different things, but the Government cannot point the finger at the facilities and lay the blame there, without being prepared to cough up the money required to deliver the quality we expect in our Aged Care Facilities. If they can do it for the NDIS, it CAN be done for Aged Care, it just takes political will.