Ms Burrell, 49, is an experienced Registered Nurse who runs night and evening shifts at an aged care facility in Sydney’s inner west.
Late at night she must cope with just three other staff and no doctors. In the event of an emergency, Ms Burrell must decide if a doctor needs to be called or a resident needs to go to hospital.
She must also supervise the care of residents suffering from dementia and a range of physical ailments. “I don’t have a doctor there on the premises like we do in a hospital,” she said.
While hospitals and child care centres have staff-patient ratios, Ms Burrell said Australian nursing homes did not. This meant a night shift at her facility saw two nurses and two assistants overseeing 59 residents.
Compounding the problem, residents are now sicker and frailer when the reach nursing homes due to people living longer and staying at home longer with home help.
“They’re coming in so much worse off than they did before,” Ms Burrell said. “People are living longer. There’s nothing wrong with that … but when we get them their level of care is very high.”
This is the reality for Australia’s aged care nurses, who work just as hard and have just as much responsibility but are paid much less than their hospital counterparts.
The situation is putting pressure on an already stretched aged care system. A Federal Government spokesperson told Health Reporterthe aged care system needed reform, but nurses like Terri Burrell say action is long overdue.
Ms Burrell, who has two adult boys, loves her job and has been there for 20 years. Her facility is a good one, but the low pay rates mean she fights a constant battle finding and keeping good staff.
The dedicated nurse is one of thousands of workers who despite minimal wages tend our elderly, making their final years more comfortable.
The Australian Nursing Federation recently welcomed the Federal Government’s $18.7 million plan to expand the role of Nurse Practitioners, who are qualified to treat clients in an advanced clinical role, in residential and community based care.
But the ANF’s Because We Care campaign also wants a better wage deal for all aged care workers.
Aged care nurses earn $168-$300 on average a week less than those in public hospitals – at a time Australia urgently needs 20,000 more aged care nurses.
Ms Burrell earns $6 an hour less than her public hospital counterparts, which equals $240 a week or $12,000 a year.
She says this is largely because hospital nurses are paid by state governments and aged care nurses by the Federal Government.
An ANF online survey late last year found 78 per cent of aged care nurses and assistants, 90 per cent of whom are women, would leave if the wage gap wasn’t closed. Only 10 per cent wouldn’t leave.
ANF Federal Secretary Lee Thomas said the message was loud and clear. “The vast majority of low paid nursing and care staff working in aged care are very worried about the wages gap across the sector and are now prepared to leave their job because of it,” he said.
The ANF wants the Gillard Government to inject $500 million to close the wages gap in aged care by making Budget 2012 the “aged care Budget”.
“It’s very difficult to get staff, very, very difficult,” Ms Burrell says. “I think we need to be paid the same as the state nurses so what we can appeal to the nurses in the state system to come in to nursing homes.”
A spokesperson for the Acting Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, said the Federal Government recognised a need to reform the aged care sector, which is why it asked the Productivity Commission to investigate it.
“We want to give older Australians the security they need as they age and more choice and control over the way that they live,” she said. “We also want to see a system that is financially sustainable, has the highest standards of quality and is fair for those being cared for as well as for the rest of society.
“Aged care workers provide a vital service in the care of older people and ensuring that Australia has an appropriate workforce will be an integral part of meeting the challenges of an ageing population. We are currently considering the PC’s recommendations and remain committed to starting reform in the ageing sector in this term of government.”
Source: Health Reporter