The report on aged care makes grim reading. It details evidence of poor food and neglect and instances where staff ratios are unable to deliver the respect and care that the glossy brochures promise. Aged care is a growing industry that needs professional standards to attract career minded people to replace the untrained. Amid all this gloom and doom, one aspect of government service now in place deserves commendation.
In the past, when people in aged care needed to consult a specialist doctor or have treatment at an outdoor clinic the task of getting them to those appointments usually fell to relatives or friends. Often parking was impossible in proximity close to the intended destination and the frail lacked the ability to walk even short distances.
Even worse, some aged residents had no family support and their only movement option was to take a taxi to and from the appointment. If they were lucky, they might be given a transport voucher which reduced the journey price by half, but they were seriously out of pocket.
In New South Wales we now have a a service called " Community Transport ". It comprises a fleet of fully equipped ambulances crewed by both a driver and a medically trained attendant. They pick up residents from nursing homes or aged care homes and deliver them into the waiting rooms of the service provider, and then return them to their place of residence after the consultation or treatment.
These ambulances are decked out in the traditional ambulance livery and and have the consequent road rights. The internal fittings are impressive. Their passenger can travel seated or lay on a traditional wheeled gurney and they are under trained medical care at all times. The attendant has similar training to a paramedic and these ambulance transports are equipped with oxygen and other medical facilities to respond to the patients medical needs.
There is no charge for this service and the vehicle numbers seem sufficient to meet demand. The attending crews are both efficient and courteous and it seems no aged care resident should now miss a medical appointment because of transport difficulties, and that journey is made in a vehicle specifically configured to carry the patient safely and meet their medical needs.
Obviously, this costs the government a lot of money in providing and running the fleet of vehicles and crewing them with trained and courteous people, but it is fast becoming an essential service in the provision of aged care.
What the report now laying in government hands clearly shows is that similar professionalism needs to extend to the aged care industry. At present, some aged care establishments simply recruit untrained people on the basis of long hours at minimum pay levels. This needs to change to a career path where aged care workers seniority advances with their skill component and pay level.
The workings of the Community Transport fleet illustrate what is possible when professional standards are applied to this essential industry.
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