Doctors call for extra nursing staff in aged care
Peter Ford, who chairs the Australian Medical Association (AMA) committee for healthy ageing, has called on the Government to make medical care a condition of accreditation for aged care facilities.
Dr Ford said it was unacceptable that some homes employed just one nurse to care for up to 120 elderly residents.
He criticised aged care facilities that set aside rooms for hairdressing, but not for medical appointments and where visiting doctors were having to provide palliative care to dying patients in badly lit shared rooms, without even basic medical supplies.
“We see that nursing homes don’t provide adequate medical services,” Dr Ford told The Weekend Australian.
“There is no requirement in the (accreditation) criteria for nursing homes to ensure that residents have a medical service”.
Dr Ford said nursing homes were relying increasingly on immigrant carers who had trouble speaking English.
“One registered nurse per 100 or 120 patients, with carers who are struggling themselves, is a formula for ensuring a reduced standard of care,” he said.
Dr Ford called on the Government to quarantine some of its $6 billion in annual funding for aged care to pay for set quotas of nursing staff.
