Aged-care workers earn little more than the minimum wage. Yet their job goes far beyond cleaning and caring. It's time to take a leaf out of the nursing profession's book and encourage more career prestige.
Two residents in a Brisbane aged-care home were given a higher dose of the Pfizer vaccine than recommended. Here's what might have happened – and how we can reduce the risk it will happen again.
Aged-care residents will be among the first to receive the Pfizer vaccine when the rollout begins next week. For some, the process of consenting to the vaccine could raise ethical questions.
Whether an employer can insist on vaccination as a condition of employment is an ambiguous legal question, as shown by two recent unfair dismissal cases.
Publishing hospitalisation data is a good start. But ultimately we need information about each aged care facility's performance to be publicly available.
Professional home care for the elderly in Ghana has been ignored.
Kwame Amo/Shutterstock
The most important changes in Scott Morrison's limited reshuffle are centred on two vital and controversial issues that will severely test the government in coming months.
The federal government has announced A$850 million for 10,000 additional home-care packages, as part of $1 billion for aged care. Here's why that's not nearly enough.
The royal commission into aged care has opened a priceless window for reform. A Grattan Institute report says this requires more funding, local accountability, and a louder voice for older Australians.
Super-spreader events typically have the 'three Vs" in common: indoor venues, poor ventilation and vocalisation. But many buildings frequented by the public lack ventilation or the means to monitor it.
If Australia created more age-friendly neighbourhoods — which really are more liveable for everyone — then we wouldn't have to rely so heavily on underfunded, substandard aged-care homes.
Thanks to review upon review, we have plenty of evidence about the problems in aged care. But federal governments have shown 'a lack of willingness to commit to change'.
The free market experiment in residential aged care is failing older Australians. Rebuilding trust in the system starts with valuing residents' rights, and holding government and providers to account.
The aged care royal commission's recent report on COVID-19 recommended accredited infection prevention and control experts be sent into residential aged care. Here's what that means.
Associate Professor, Rehabilitation, Ageing and Independent Living Research Centre and Occupational Therapy Department, School of Primary and Allied Healthcare, Monash University