THE aged-care royal commission has criticised what has been claimed was the federal government’s failure to prepare aged-care homes for the COVID-19 crisis.

In a scathing address, counsel assisting the commission Peter Rozen, QC, said “we should not be surprised” by the outbreaks which have claimed 138 lives in Victoria. “It’s not a system that is failing,” he said.

“It’s a system operating as it is designed to operate.”

With 68 per cent of Australian COVID-19 deaths linked to aged care, Mr Rozen said this was “one of the highest rates in the world”.

Mr Rozen said the federal Health Department and the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission failed to develop “a COVID-19 plan specifically for the aged-care sector”.

“On July 29, 2020, as COVID-19 was raging through a large number of nursing homes in Melbourne with devastating consequences, commonwealth Health Minister Greg Hunt was quoted as saying that, and I quote, ‘aged care around the country has been immensely prepared’,” Mr Rozen said.

“In a number of important respects, the evidence will demonstrate that the sector has been underprepared.”

Mr Rozen said a regulator was set up in July last year — but its preparation after the virus was first identified in Australia in March largely consisted of sending out a survey that providers completed themselves.

And 99.5 per cent of providers assessed their readiness as satisfactory, with 42.7 rating themselves as “best practice”.

Mr Rozen also targeted the lack of advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee between June 19 and August 3, “a crucial period” when dozens of Melbourne facilities battled outbreaks.

The commission also heard how NSW hospitals resisted admitting COVID-positive patients from Newmarch House in April — a difficulty some Victorian facilities experienced last month, frustrating the federal government.

Merle Mitchell, a resident in a Glen Waverley facility, told the hearing she would “rather be dead” than in aged care. Although there hasn’t been any cases at her facility, she has had to stay in her room 24 hours a day.

Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said the government had spent $850m supporting the sector during the pandemic.

Herald Sun 

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