"The system is broken": 200 aged care homes at the brink of collapse
Close to 200 aged care providers housing more than 50,000 senior Australians are at great risk of going broke.
The national body for providers, Leading Aged Services Australia (LASA), has revealed a worrying amount of older Australians are at the brink of collapse.
LASA’s accountants went over publicly available financial reports of aged cares between 2018-2018 and found an alarming 197 providers faced financial strains.
It believes an extra $1.3 billion in federal government funding is necessary before christmas to keep the aged care providers afloat.
"The scale of this risk is alarming for residents and their families, as well as stressed staff, financially stretched providers and the government," chief executive Sean Rooney said on Tuesday, according to news.com.au.
This report comes after a scathing review of a Gold Coast nursing home made headlines for forcibly closing their doors and evacuating residents after it went into administration.
That report found federal aged care regulators had failed to appreciate the mounting risk at Earle Haven.
Eight of the 69 residents were sent to the hospital after the Queensland government organised an evacuation and since then - three people have died.
One death includes a person who suffered a fall during the evacuation.
Mr Rooney said over half of the aged care operators were running at a financial loss.
He has called for structural adjustment programs in the aged care industry to let financially distressed operators bow out, while other operators can step in to take their place.
Mr Rooney told AAP this would help avoid the "unplanned chaos" of situations like Earle Haven.
"We can't just keep putting money into the system if the system is broken," Mr Rooney said.
Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck told parliament on Tuesday the government would be making “additional investment into the aged care sector prior to Christmas".
"The government has taken significant efforts over recent times to repair the aged care system," Senator Colbeck said, in an answer to a Labor question about the LASA report.