91��̳ - Aged care

Labor’s user-paid aged care package falls short for a vulnerable group

Meredith Lawrence — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 15:30:00 +1000

Labor’s new aged-care reform package, with a focus on support at home, is an improvement in some areas, but falls short of what the elderly need. Meredith Lawrence reports

Better training and more staff could alleviate depression in aged care

Jack Williams — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +1000

Moving into an aged care residence is often a very sudden trauma for elderly people, but there are ways to alleviate that stress, argues Jack Williams.

Aged care in crisis: Privatised system is failing workers, older people

Ben Radford — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 15:00:00 +1000

Workers in the mostly privatised aged-care system face chronic understaffing and substandard pay, while aged care providers cry poor to justify their cost cutting. Ben Radford reports.

Moreland socialist councillors: ‘Councils must not abandon the elderly’

Kerry Smith — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 15:30:00 +1000

Twenty three Victorian councils have already, or are intending to, privatise their aged-care service since the federal government changed its funding model. Kerry Smith reports.

Aged care homes need more staff

Jack Williams — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 16:15:00 +1000

Aged people are being discriminated against in homes with inadequate staff-to-patient ratios, reports Jack Williams.

Socialist candidate: ‘Government neglect to blame for COVID-19 crisis in aged care’

Sarah Hathway — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 14:30:00 +1100

Socialist Alliance candidate Sue Bull says the federal government hand-out to aged care workers won’t solve the mounting pandemic death toll among the aged. Sarah Hathway reports.

Budget 2021: Corporate handouts disguised as solutions

Alex Bainbridge — Fri, 14 May 2021 14:15:00 +1000

The corporate media is giving the federal government’s latest budget a big thumbs up, despite its brazen hand-outs for billionaires and big corporations, writes Alex Bainbridge.

Unions: Aged care system needs radical overhaul

Jim McIlroy — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 15:15:00 +1100

Overwhelmed nurses, carers, elderly residents and their families have exposed that a root cause of so much of the neglect in private centres is understaffing. Jim McIlroy reports.

Feeing dead people

Suzanne James — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 11:30:00 +1000

Any hopes raised by former prime minister Paul Keating's appearance at the royal commission into aged care were dashed by his advocacy of a user-pays system, writes Suzanne James.

Put lives and livelihoods ahead of profits

George Zangalis — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 14:30:00 +1000

The tragedy for the coronavirus victims in aged care could have been avoided, or greatly reduced, if authorities had implemented early calls for radical reforms to the very sick health system, writes George Zangalis.

Socialist councillor: ‘Aged care workers need safe workplaces’

Chloe DS — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 18:30:00 +1000

Moreland councillor Sue Bolton has added her voice to calls for safe work conditions for aged care workers as the pandemic hits the most vulnerable. Chloe DS and Darren Saffin report.

Newmarch COVID-19 crisis highlights aged care system failure

Jim McIlroy — Wed, 06 May 2020 16:15:00 +1000

Aged care home Newmarch House has become the new epicentre of COVID-19 in New South Wales. Jim McIlroy reports how privatisation and deregulation of aged care has contributed to the neglect.

Boring and frustrating: Life in a retirement home

Jack Williams — Thu, 05 Dec 2019 15:30:00 +1100

In October last year, the federal government finally established a royal commission into aged care, after a Senate inquiry received numerous complaints among its 5000 submissions. The deep-seated problems included poor standards of care, physical assaults and extremely challenging working conditions.

Aged care royal commission report a 'wake up call'

Jim McIlroy — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 17:00:00 +1100

The disastrous results of privatisation, outsourcing and deregulation in the aged care sector have been further exposed in the commission’s report. The aged care system, along with health care in general, should instead be placed under public ownership and control, and made accessible to the whole community.

Earle Haven nursing home scandal shows again why we need not-for-profit care

Michael McDonald — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 14:30:00 +1000

The disaster at the Earle Haven Retirement Village is a particularly shocking example of how already vulnerable people are treated in a system geared to making money, writes Michael McDonald.

Wayne Wharton: ‘All power to the workers, Treaty now!’

Alex Bainbridge — Fri, 10 May 2019 12:45:00 +1000

Prominent Aboriginal elder Wayne Wharton is making a tilt for the senate in Queensland this election, campaigning on issues such as justice for Aboriginal people, justice reinvestment and an improved aged care system.

Wharton told 91��̳ Weekly: “The systems that we’ve had for the last 230 years is broken, they’re useless.”

These include the legal system which, he says, is based on a “feudal system of punishment” instead of rehabilitation, and the two-party system, in which the big parties have become dominated by “top-end-of-town corruption”.

Aged care: the market is the problem

Victorian Socialists — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 14:30:00 +1000

The aged care sector should be publicly run, adequately funded and with a high standard of living, says the Victorian Socialists. The current problem is not market failure. The problem is the market itself.

Unions say its time to care for aged care

Jim McIlroy — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 15:45:00 +1000

About 500 members of the Health Services Union (HSU), United Voice, NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) and other unions gathered in Hyde Park on April 19 to "Rally for Respect: Time to Care for Aged Care."

Speakers represented the various health sector unions, as well as UnionsNSW, and Labor federal and state politicians.

Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition government has cut billions of dollars from the aged care sector. This has had an enormous impact on the lives of older Australians in care, their families and those who care for them.

Nurses and carers win wage rise

Kerry Smith — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 15:15:00 +1100

Bupa Aged Care has agreed to a wage increase of 11.25% over three years after more than 1000 aged care nurses and carers in Victoria took part in protected industrial action affecting 26 nursing homes.

The new enterprise agreement also includes significant improvements to workplace entitlements and workload management.

NSW Coalition votes to cut registered nurses from aged care

Pip Hinman — Sat, 20 May 2017 10:00:00 +1000

NSW Coalition MPs voted down a bill, 35 to 45, on May 11, that mandated registered nurses in residential aged care facilities. Labor, the Greens, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, as well as Independents Alex Greenwich and Greg Piper supported the bill.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association’s Brett Holmes said the government’s decision was “shameful” because not having skilled nurses in nursing homes would mean that the quality of care provided to some of the state’s most vulnerable would deteriorate.

Aged care suffers crisis of apathy

Zeta Henderson — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 11:00:00 +1100

There is a perception in Australia that once people reach a certain age or become unable to care for themselves, the government will take care of them no matter their social or financial circumstances.

Defend and extend age pension system

Jim McIlroy — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 10:00:00 +1000

Australia's age pension system is under attack from the federal government and right-wing, neoliberal forces. The whole community, current and future retirees, needs to mobilise to defend and extend the age pension system and change the superannuation system to more adequately meet the needs of working people. The age pension in Australia dates back to 1909. It was established as a non-contributory scheme, largely as a result of the demands of unions and community pressure.

Privatisation, cost-cutting behind aged care crisis

Stephen Norris — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:00:00 +1000

Anyone with even superficial experience with how aged people are treated would be disgusted and outraged by the standards of most nursing homes, a result of neoliberal policies in Australia. An investigation by ABC TV’s Lateline on July 15 found many elderly people living in aged care facilities are grossly neglected. Advocacy groups have called it “a national human rights emergency”. The issue typically gets mentioned in the media only when a spectacle is involved, like a fire in a nursing home that costs lives.

91������̳ - Aged care