THE region’s largest aged care provider has urged the community to be cautious this Mother’s Day given the potential risk of COVID-19.
Mother’s Day is traditionally one of the biggest visiting days for aged regional care providers.
While just one new South Australian case was confirmed yesterday – the first in two weeks – Boandik chief executive Gillian McGinty said the community must not become complacent.
“Coming up to Mother’s Day, we know that will be challenge,” Ms McGinty said.
“The rules have not changed. It is still one visit per day of a maximum of two people.
“We have windows and two family members can come in and the rest can be outside, they can talk on telephones and we also have FaceTime, Skype and Zoom set up.”
She said residents were becoming more tech-savvy during the COVID-19 pandemic and were quite good at digital communication when connected.
“But they tend not to understand particularly Zoom, they do not understand they can talk to people. They think it is like a television and they cannot talk back,” Ms McGinty said.
Regarding how the residents were feeling during these uncertain times, the aged care chief said residents were feeling at ease.
“We did a survey on our infection control processes in April and asked the residents if they felt safe with the processes in place and we had a 100pc say ‘yes, they did’,” Ms McGinty said.
She said these matters had also been discussed at resident meetings.
“They are really appreciative they still have visitors.”
Ms McGinty said the COVID-19 clusters at some interstate aged care facilities demonstrated the potential risk to people living in aged care environments.
“I think aged care will be one of the last sectors to have restrictions eased because we have such a vulnerable population and because of things that have happened interstate and internationally,” she added.
The same restrictions remain in place as when there were community cases in the Limestone Coast.
“We have not lifted any restrictions. I think we are feeling that it is too early to feel safe and we need to maintain everything that is in place until we get further down the track,” Ms McGinty said.
The aged care leader also praised the community for following restrictions at aged care facilities.
“Our visitors have been fantastic. They have been really accepting of all the restrictions that are in place and have been providing their flu vaccination records,” she explained.
“They have been accepting of the changes that we have had to make, sometimes on a daily or weekly basis in response to what is happening.”
Ms McGinty said community members appreciated they could still visit their family members.
Meanwhile, Boandik has welcomed a funding boost from the Federal Government that will help meet skyrocketing costs connected with COVID-19.
“This will help ensure aged care providers can meet the additional costs of what has happened with COVID-19 in regards to staffing, infection control processes and personnel protective equipment,” Ms McGinty said.
She said these additional measures also included the monitoring of visitors and flu vaccinations.
“It really has had a huge impost on our aged care providers with the additional systems that had to be put in place to manage the restrictions,” Ms McGinty explained.
While the government had yet to release exact figures for providers, it is estimated Boandik is likely to receive around $300,000.
“This is a fantastic boost to our bottomline. We were and may still be, in deficit this year. Aged care providers across Australia are really struggling,” she said.
Member for Barker Tony Pasin MP said the funding was to keep people in residential aged care, protected and safe.
“Senior Australians are highly vulnerable to coronavirus and we are seeing the cost the pandemic is having on facilities around the country,” Mr Pasin said.
“This will make a big difference to so many aged care facilities in Barker. And it’s reassuring for family and friends that aged care facilities are being supported to ensure their loved ones are being looked after to the highest standard during this difficult time.”
Figures show 56pc of aged care operators in Australia are operating at a deficit.
“It is a really hard environment where our subsidies have not been keeping up with costs. This will cover some of the cost of the pandemic,” Ms McGinty said.
While the aged care provider had a pandemic plan “in place at all times”, these measures were not budgeted.
“We do not budget for a pandemic because we all hope it will never happen,” Ms McGinty said.
