Women employed in the caring sector are at the front line of COVID and often live far from the leafy,affluent suburbs of Melbourne or Sydney.
Anika Wells will begin looking at the prospect of using migration to help fill tens of thousands of vacancies across the embattled sector.
There have been 1572 COVID-related deaths in nursing homes within the first five months of this year.
Health Services Union national president Gerard Hayes said Labor’s promise to endorse a wage rise for the aged-care workforce should occur within its first few weeks of government.
Aged care providers are calling for prioritised childcare and migration incentives to draw people back into the workforce.
It was early 1982 when the 470 bus to Sydney University pulled up in front of the old Children’s Hospital in Camperdown and a skinny young bloke in a denim jacket came on board. I soon came to realise how profound an impact one woman had had on his life.
More aged care homes are running at a financial loss as the growing home-care sector poaches workers,putting new minimum staffing standards at risk.
Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck has backed workers’ push for a pay rise and says the Coalition’s new funding model will cover the costs.
UnitingCare has called for the next government to fund the increase being sought by the Health Services Union as sections of the national workforce prepare to strike in the lead-up to the May 21 federal election.
Overworked and exhausted aged care workers struggle to offer a good life to their residents,let alone a good death.
Australia must proactively recruit nurses from overseas to deliver election commitments to minimum aged care staffing,the peak training body says.