Caring for our Most Vulnerable People !

Aged care is a business and like every other sort of business it needs to pay the wages of its staff on time to keep the doors open.  Having the money in the bank to meet the costs depends on whatever level of aged care it provides having a healthy fee structure in place and being run by management on an economic budget.   When that fails the outcome for the residents involved and their loved ones is simply a disaster.

The places that can never close their doors and cease providing services are our hospitals and many would argue that nursing homes fit into a similar category.  A nursing home is usually the last stage of aged care and their residents are helpless people who rely on the care provided to survive.   That is a level of care that can not be interrupted for even an hour without the possibility of fatal consequences.

We now learn of the incredible events that overtook the sixty-eight residents of a nursing home on the Gold Coast which closed without warning in July.  It had been wracked by a dispute over wages with the result the staff walked off the job while lunch was being served when it became clear that any further pay was uncertain, and at the same time creditors were arriving to recover service items subjected to unpaid debt.  The computers and patient records disappeared from the nursing home office and removalists were on site with instructions to remove patients beds.

Fortunately, a sub contractor providing services had the good sense to phone 000 and ask the ambulance service to come and collect as many residents as possible.  This dispersal saw some residents moved to a nearby motel and others reclaimed by their loved ones and it is quite possible that ownership of the nursing home may change hands and see services restored.

This is a timely warning. There are a vast number of privately owned nursing homes scattered across Australia and these are a similar essential service to the emergency department in hospitals.  In this case the end result of financial instability saw staff simply walk off the job and helpless patients becoming abandoned.  That is an intolerable situation which could quickly result in fatalities.

A nursing home needs a license to operate and as part of that licensing regime its financial health needs monitoring.  If a nursing home is unprofitable there is every chance that food and patient care will deteriorate and government intervention with the threat of the license being revoked  may bring a change of ownership or management improvement.  It should not be allowed to deteriorate until the event that happened on the Gold Coast becomes inevitable.

Nursing homes are essential emergency services,.  As such, their financial ability to operate needs to be as closely monitored as the level of patient care provided.  If either falls short of the standard required intervention would ensure that closure happened in an orderly manner and avoided that near disaster on the Gold Coast.