Perspective
Because we care our campaign continues
Published: 16 June 2010
The May federal budget was an eagerly anticipated event for the QNU. We worked hard over the last 15 months to lobby the Rudd government to deliver for aged care through our national Because We Care campaign and some of the important gains in the 2010 budget are a direct result of our activities.
Commitments totaling $132 million in new funding for aged care initiatives include:
- $60 million for training for existing nursing and aged care staff to upgrade their qualifications
- $21 million for 900 new nursing scholarships
- $19 million to trial new models that expand the role of nurse practitioners in aged care
- $3.5 million to explore a national regulation system for currently unregulated workers in aged care including assistants in nursing and personal care workers
- $500,000 for a research study on staffing levels, skills mix and care needs.
This is a start and QNU members should be acknowledged for the role they played, through activities on the ground and in workplaces, in raising community awareness and bringing to the attention of the federal government the need to deliver for aged care.
But there is much more to do if we are to achieve all of our campaign objectives, especially the “big ticket” items of closing the wages gap, improving skill mix and staffing numbers and achieving transparent and accountable funding arrangements for aged care.
In both our meetings with and correspondence to the Prime Minister and Health Minister we have continued to stress that sustainable and meaningful national health and hospitals reform will not be able to be achieved unless aged care is properly incorporated into the reform process. Addressing our Because We Care campaign objectives is central to achieving sustainable health reform, and with a federal election due to occur some time this year, we will be presented with some important opportunities to advance our arguments and call for further commitments from the government.
Another important opportunity we have to advance our objectives is through the recently commissioned Productivity Commission public inquiry, Caring for Older Australians. This inquiry is to issue an interim report to government by December 2010 with a final report due in April 2011. Although it is easy to become frustrated and see this as yet another inquiry into aged care, we must move past frustration and disappointment and sustain our focus to keep aged care high on the government’s radar.
To support a detailed written submission being provided by the QNU, members are encouraged to make their own submission via an electronic template document which can be downloaded from the QNU website.
If the ultimate objective of governments and policy makers is to promote seamless patient-centered care then they must view the health and aged care sectors as one system. What happens (or doesn’t happen) in one sector has profound implications for other parts of the system and most importantly for the patient or resident receiving care.
If, for example, there are insufficient numbers and mix of registered and enrolled nurses in residential aged care facilities then residents with complex health needs cannot be safely cared for and are often forced to be transferred to hospital when they become acutely ill.
Just how can aged care sector employers expect to attract and retain sufficient numbers of appropriately skilled nurses if the significant differentials in pay between the acute and aged care sectors continue?
The recent budget announcement of additional funding to train existing nursing and aged care staff to upgrade their qualifications is only part of the solution. Without fair and comparable wages in aged care there will be nothing to stop these newly trained nurses from pursuing higher paid jobs in other sectors, leaving aged care back where it started.
The Rudd government must be convinced that addressing this fundamental structural impediment is a policy priority that underpins sustainable health and aged care reform.
Our campaign continues.
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