Extract from ABC News
Analysis
The latest case of COVID-19 in a Melbourne aged care facility, confirmed yesterday, couldn't have come at a worse time for Richard Colbeck.
The Aged Care Minister's competence has again been under serious question this week as he's struggled to explain what appears to be a baffling oversight in the vaccine roll-out: aged care staff.
Three residents and two staff members (one of whom was unvaccinated) are now among more than 60 COVID cases in Victoria. Fortunately, the cases linked to aged care this week are all showing only mild or no symptoms, but they have highlighted once again how easily this virus can reach the nation's most vulnerable.
Colbeck keeps insisting he's "comfortable" with the vaccine roll-out. At the same time, he's confessed he has no idea how many aged care staff have received a jab.
How a minister can be completely in the dark, yet "comfortable" with that situation, is a mystery. How he can be untroubled by the lack of information on his desk, is a concern. How he remains unsure whether this is even his responsibility (apparently "it's not a yes or no answer") points to a serious lack of accountability.
This is the same minister, let's remember, who had to apologise last year after an embarrassing appearance before a Senate committee, when he couldn't recall the number of COVID deaths in aged care. Now it's not so much a failure to recall, but a failure to have relevant facts at all and a failure to know whether it's even his job to know.
Staff pose the greatest risk
The expert advice may well have been to prioritise aged care residents over staff in the vaccine roll-out, but it's hard to believe anyone would have recommended such an ad-hoc and slipshod approach to the workforce.
More than 650 aged care residents died from COVID in Victoria last year. Most of the outbreaks in aged care facilities originated from unknowingly infected staff.
In response to a question on notice, the federal Health Department cited Victorian data showing staff members were identified as the "index case (first diagnosed case) in approximately 84 per cent (146) of the 174 COVID-19 outbreaks in Victorian residential aged care facilities".
Any competent minister would surely be cracking the whip to ensure this workforce was vaccinated as quickly as possible; to protect themselves, their loved ones and the vulnerable residents in their care.
Indeed, when the vaccine roll-out began 100 days ago, the government itself said aged care residents and staff (phase 1a) would be the first cabs off the rank. They would be fully vaccinated by April.
In fairness, some problems beyond the government's control emerged since then, slowing the whole roll-out. This however, doesn't entirely excuse the failure on aged care staff. And it certainly doesn't excuse the lack of curiosity about how many have received a jab.
In some cases, staff have been seamlessly vaccinated onsite after residents receive their jabs. But this clearly has not been the norm. The best guess Health Department officials could provide on Tuesday (based on a limited survey) was that around 10.9 per cent of staff have received one jab and only 8.7 per cent have been fully vaccinated.
By Wednesday, Greg Hunt had a slightly higher figure to report in question time, claiming "17.3 per cent of Commonwealth aged care workers have received doses”. That still means more than 80 per cent are yet to receive a single jab.
A policy problem and a political problem
The lack of clear data is a problem. It's a policy problem and a political problem. Health Minister Greg Hunt and the Aged Care Minister have both found themselves tangled in knots in recent interviews trying to answer straight-forward questions about the vaccine roll-out.
While able to produce a wall of numbers about how many have been vaccinated, the ministers have struggled to say how many have not. Surely this is just as important, if not more so.
The government may have dropped targets, but a daily update of how many aged care and disability care facilities, residents and staff remain unvaccinated would help keep track of the challenge confronting the nation.
The public deserves to know how this phase 1a category is progressing. If the data is too difficult to find, tell us why. Or perhaps put the Navy Commodore running the "Vaccine Operations Centre" onto the job.
Hunt and Colbeck also found themselves on the defensive after revelations this week staff were able to resume working across multiple aged care facilities back in November. This was triggered by the fact Melbourne was no longer declared a "hotspot".
Wages are an issue
Last week, after being declared a "hotspot" again, the one-site work rule for Melbourne aged care facilities was re-instated.
This may have all been done in accordance with medical advice, but it underscores the pressure facing a sector that plainly needs more staff. As everyone from the Productivity Commission to the Royal Commission has noted, attracting more staff requires better wages.
In its $17.7 billion response to the royal commission, the government didn't address wages, beyond a retention incentive for nurses.
Labor has seized on this missing piece of the puzzle but is still working out what it might do to tackle the problem.
Health and hospital funding is a conventional election debate in Australia. This time, that's likely to take a back seat to aged care: how to attract more staff, how to boost wages and how to improve the quality of care.
For all its spending, the government remains vulnerable on aged care and the complacency revealed in its effort to vaccinate staff hasn't helped.
David Speers is the host of Insiders, which airs on ABC TV at 9am on Sunday or on iview.
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