‘Didn’t act in the face of all evidence’: directly linking the government to VIC aged care deaths

The respected journalist and social affairs commentator, Rick Morton, has given a searing exposé on the failures of governments that created the high death rate in Victorian aged care homes.

The 16 minute podcast released yesterday morning is a must listen to by every aged care sector staff member, and indeed members of the public.

It rips the veil off confident (and apparently complacent) bureaucrats and identifies aged care operators as ‘alarmingly desperate’, but not listened to. Morton demonstrates that governments didn’t act in the face of all evidence, did not consider that aged care residents have a right to stay negative to COVID and demonstrated no respect for aged care operators. He comes to the conclusion that the response in June by the government to outbreaks in aged care was based on ‘keeping hospitals for the young’.

He also touches on the fact that aged care operators are fearful of criticising the government because of funding. But these events in Victoria on top of the appalling lack of empathy and performance demonstrated by the Department of Health in the Royal Commission, demands that operators speak up. As Morton points out, people are dying unnecessarily.

(The podcasts platform is titled 7am and is part of The Saturday Paper media group. Thanks to Nick Loudon, CEO and principal of Envigor Home Care, and LASA board member, for bringing it to our attention).