Aged care crisis - Australia's greatest shame

Last night ABC's Lateline lifted the lid on an Aged Care Crisis which I have been trying to draw attention to for many years .

In light of the revelations arising from the Lateline program, we will begin this article by recalling the basic substance of that recent (July 15^th ) story.

ABC investigative journalist Margot O'Neil constructed a report for Lateline after conducting a year-long investigationthat common complaints about the quality of aged care in Australia included residents:

being left in faeces and urine, rough treatment, poor nutrition, inadequate pain relief, verbal abuse, and untreated broken bones and infections.

And further:

one woman has told the ABC that her grandmother, who survived Nazi concentration camps, believes her experiences in aged care are worse than her wartime ordeal.

Jane Green – daughter of former high intensity aged care resident Margaret McEvoy – recalled her own specific story to the ABC how, explaining how:

For five days, staff tried to make Ms McEvoy walk. In fact, she had an undiagnosed broken thigh bone, a raging infection, and severe dehydration.

The ABC further observed that: "Ms Green, who is also a nurse, had to fight to get her mother taken to hospital, where she was immediately put into palliative care. She died six weeks later."

In a similar storynurse and health care lecturer Mardi Walker:

was horrified when she found her [91 year old] grandmother with exposed raw ear cartilage due to lack of turning, and one of her arms immobilised after staff botched injections.

She recalls that: "They would just keep injecting into the same spot and she would scream. My mother said it was horrific, because she would scream."