Aged care standards are

are in the spotlight again - and not doing well. 

As regular readers of this blog know my father, fondly known as the Senior Cat, made his own decision to go into residential care last year. He'd had yet another fall and that meant yet another ambulance call and another trip to hospital.

The Senior Cat is 98 and still intellectually alert. He forgets things occasionally but we all do that. He can still have theological and philosophical conversations with people. He was giving one of the young staff members some help with study skills too.

Note though I said "was". The young staff member has moved on. We are sorry about that. She was absolutely delightful. Her departure though is indicative of the problems in aged care. Anyone who is any good tends to move on fairly quickly. 

The reasons for this are multiple of course but one is definitely the very poor rate of pay. Aged care facilities are expensive to run. The owners of them want to make a profit. One way of doing that is to keep staff wages as low as possible. Even then fees for residents are high.

The Senior Cat's income comes from what is known as the "old state Superannuation scheme". When he was a teacher he was required to put a certain amount of his salary into the scheme and the government met that amount. It was a sort of forced saving for his retirement. He will never get an aged pension.  From that the residence he is now in takes the maximum amount they are permitted to take. They add extras where they can too. It irritates them that I do his washing. I do it not simply because it is cheaper for me to do it but because we hope fewer of his clothes will go missing. If his clothes don't go through an industrial laundry they might also last a bit longer and, most importantly, look rather better. 

There are 38 beds in the residence - yes, it is small - and one woman, working part time, has to do the laundry for 36 of those people. The clothing standards suffer because of it. Recently, when I was handing back a singlet which did not belong to the Senior Cat, she told me, "How can I do a good job when they don't give me enough time? I'd like time just to sew a button occasionally."  

I think she does care. There are one or two other older members of staff who also care. They have been in the job for a long time - because they want to be there. I think the young one who is moving on could have been like that but the money she was getting is barely enough to live on. 

We really do have an aged care crisis in this country. We have an increasing number of people with dementia - something that can happen with a rise in the number of aged in the population. Often there is no choice to have them anywhere other than in aged care. The Senior Cat stayed at home as long as possible. I would still have him here if I could lift him if he fell and had not injured himself. I would prefer that. He would. So would the rest of the family. It was just physically impossible. I still feel guilty. He is not in a good place but it is better than many others. I know it is better than many but it still isn't good. The standard of care has slipped again.  It is why Middle Cat and I go in and out frequently.

If the Senior Cat did not have us he would likely not get his electric razor repaired. His mobile phone (because there are no phone extensions in the rooms) would not get recharged. He would be wearing clothing belonging to other people more often than he is. His hair might not get cut on a regular basis (Middle Cat does that) and much more. He calls himself "lucky". All I can say is that this is what everyone needs.

Where do we go from here? I am officially "old" but I look at the residents and think I do not want to grow "old" like that.