Time to stop forming committees to consider action and start pushing much harder for the government to realise that the aged care sector's lack of nursing staff is crippling services. The aged care sector's 1,200 nursing shortage means that the elderly are having to stay in hospital, which in turn puts additional pressure on hospital services. With the staffing crisis affecting all areas in the health sector, it is not even an option for the elderly to have in-home care as the nursing shortage has hit hard there as well.
Aged Care Commissioner Carolyn Cooper has been quoted as saying that immigration settings and a lack of funding for education and training are contributing to the shortage. The process of bringing in offshore staff is laborious, as aged care facilities have to be accredited employers and apply for visas for the incoming nurses making sure that their qualifications are recognised here. This process is taking up to six months.
Instead of yet another bike lane, can we please have some sensible decisions made around moving swiftly to get the health professionals into the country that we so desperately need? Focusing on core essentials is the mainstay of good business, if we can't get health and education right, it really doesn't matter how many bike lanes we have.
