The Budget Fails to Deliver for Aged Care Workers and Residents
30 March 2022
Media Opportunity:
Emily Shepherd – ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary
ANMF Office – 19 Brisbane Street, Launceston
March 30, 2022 – TODAY at 1:00pm
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Tasmanian Branch is dismayed and frustrated the Federal Budget failed to restore and rebuild Australia’s public health system and the private aged care sector.
The lack of sustainable funding and real health reform for health and aged care shows that the Prime Minister Scott Morrison has not delivered in key areas.
The ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary Emily Shepherd said today, “the Budget failed to meet any of our priorities. What the ANMF and members needed to see was a holistic and long-term funding commitment to ratios, transparency of funding and better wages and conditions for nurses and care workers in the aged care sector.
“In the public sector nurses and midwives are also beyond the point of burn out with no funding to re-build a sustainable health care workforce.”
Ms Shepherd said the failures by the Morrison Government to fix aged care are again compounded in this budget with funding only attributed to cherry picked Royal Commission recommendations.
“Tasmanian aged care facilities are really hurting right now. Our data has revealed in one Southern Cross Care facility, there is just ONE care worker per 20 residents. Staff are trying their absolute best to care for their residents, but this can’t continue.”
Despite chronic staffing shortages, the devastation of COVID-19 and the disgraceful lack of respect for older Australians, Mr Morrison’s Budget shows that playing politics, not fixing aged care, is his government’s top priority.
For real reform of health and aged care, the ANMF is calling on the Opposition, the Greens, and Independents to work with stakeholders and commit to:
- Fund and legislate the requirement for 24-hour registered nurse presence in nursing homes
- Fund and legislate mandated staffing ratios in private aged care
- Improve wages and conditions for the depleted aged care workforce
- Legislate clear transparency measures to ensure that taxpayer-funds for aged care providers are tied to direct care.
“The government cannot ignore the plight of nursing home residents, nurses and care workers, by failing to implement the Royal Commission’s key recommendations – safe minimum staffing levels, increased wages for aged care workers and genuine accountability for taxpayers’ money,” Ms Shepherd said.
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Media contact:
Emily Shepherd, ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary
Mobile: 0400 884 021
Email: Emily.Shepherd@anmftas.org.au