No care for carers says expert

The co-author of the study, Dr. Tony Jones from the Australian National University (ANU) Research Centre for the Neurosciences for Ageing and Older Person's Mental Health Service, says that there are many young people working in the industry who are underpaid, have had little training and are unaware of protocols that are in place to protect them.

"A significant number are aged between 15 and 24 years of age... so when you're looking at the sorts of things that they have to experience in their day to day course of their work I think that that's actually quite troubling," he said.

"At the time we did our study I think they were getting paid about $11.30 or so an hour. I believe that had gone up to somewhere over $12.00, but we are not talking about large amounts of money here, are we?

Dr. Jones says that registered nurses once worked within this field, but have since left en mass. He says that the vacancies left by these exiting nurses has seen many unqualified, although no less professional, people becoming carers.

"I know that we call them 'nurses' but with all due respect to the incredible job that they do they are actually personal carers - they are not registered nurses... aged care facilities are typified by the fact that registered nurses have actually left them in droves.

A possible explanation for why these nurses may have left may be found in the statistics that Dr. Jones' report has collated.

"86 per cent of them received verbal abuse from residents... 62 per cent report physical abuse by residents... 46 per cent reported sexually inappropriate behaviour, from residents, directed towards them and 30 per cent reported it occurring up to five times a month... for these people it's a part of their day to day experience in their workplace... How much do we, as a society, value the people who care for the people that we say we care for?

Dr. Jones says that carers have been forgotten in the process of the mandatory reporting of abuse, which he believes only takes into account the patient or person being cared for.

"We talk about mandatory reporting of abuse and assault in aged care facilities, but we know that the people being abused and assaulted on daily basis are actually the people who are doing the care...

Dr. Jones says that questions need to be asked about why this is happening and what we can do to fix it.

"Why does this happen? ... Why are we paying them such little money? Why are we not training these people? Why are we not talking about their experiences? I mean that's an open-ended question. Why is this happening?

The ANU report has been sent to the Federal Government and Dr. Jones hopes that the university's findings will be considered.

"What they do with it, well, that's up to them."

By Nicholas Kittel

Article from www.abc.net.au/canberra