Staff shortages are getting the blame for this mistreatment:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-31/chemical-restraint-antipsychotic-drugs-wi...

Spot

Aged Care

My definition ? The biggest political hot potato in Australian history.

The Baby Boomer phenomenon was officially recognised for decades in population stats yet successive govts haven't been able to responsibly budget for when this age cohort would end up being an economic burden on the rest of the community.

It's hardly the fault of baby boomers who were born and found themselves here. They had no say in any of that.

Govts have a responsibility and a duty to provide protection for all its citizens especially those vulnerable.

The Baby Boomers of Australia are right now...as I type....amongst the frail and aged in our community who need support (of the responsive and responsible variety).

We who are of the next Generation ie Gen X and Gen Y .... are currently in positions of authority and trust. At some stage we will have to acknowledge that we have failed our Baby Boomer parents. And hang our heads in shame!

The reason why I gave up my life for 2 whole years ( no one online knew I was alive ) was to care for my own baby boomer dying mum BECAUSE the brutal reality of AGED CARE was too cruel for me to bear. This next bit is going to be hard to type out as it always breaks my heart ....but I was advised by well meaning Case Managers about how bankrupt the system was and how long the waiting periods were before my mum could get a package sorted. I was told to accept the reality that baby boomers were dying while waiting in the queue. I was told baby boomers and even older folk were eventually found alone and ignored for years while waiting for support. And they were too sick and fragile by then for anything but hospice care. I won't continue with more heart breaking case studies. There's really no need to.

In response to this I made the decision to put my life on hold and work 14 hr shifts caring for mum 7 days a week. My siblings split the rest of the shifts btwn them (they did not wish to give up their careers). The reality of these arrangements changed within a month.

I ended up doing 14 hr shifts Monday to Friday and every hour of the weekend. My own family pulled together as much as they could ( I cooked for multi households so at least the cooking was easy to pick up and it was ready to go).

The other thing I did was to do multi household washing loads on weekends (to alleviate the workload in my own family). So they would merely come over to pick up baskets of freshly washed and dried folded towels, tea towels and sheets on weekends which helped a lot I suppose.

The main priority for me was keeping mum alive, well and happy IN HER OWN HOME surrounded by familiar people who could speak her languages and who understood her cultural heritage.

The truth about what happened after 2 YEARS of working under such strain?

• I almost lost my life driving back to my home one evening because I fell asleep at the wheel for a micro second. The car was a write off and I had to be cut out of the car to get out of it and be rushed to hospital (I was ok ...just had sore ribs and bruises and was in shock).

• I almost lost my marriage. Yep. My marriage suffered. Things are ok now but I separated from my husband for a month.

These 2 events were my wake up call.

I was trying to bridge the gap btwn a FAILED AGED CARE system and a generation of Australians who through no fault of their own .... dared to be born and dared to grow old.

The worst bit in all this is coming up now:

I was finally spoken to by a certain regional Case Manager who I vented a lot of these issues to.

This woman warned me. Yep she WARNED ME. Why? They were now finding that the children who were picking up the slack btwn govt underfunding and lack of care ...these children were dying before their frail and aged parents. I didn't understand how that could be. Well it turns out that the stress and next level exhaustion/burn out issues were behind heart attacks, accidents and even depression and suicide. We are talking CARERS! 

Marriage and relationship breakdowns had also become a significant recurring issue because the absent partner was effectively always on duty and/or on call elsewhere.

The point I'm trying to make? Whenever our govts fail in any area of responsibility ... we the people will ultimately suffer terribly. And in some cases irreversibly. For every single aged and frail person who's been failed by our govt ... many other lives will end up bearing that initial unit of cost.

Ultimately this means our society as a whole loses out.

And that's not right!

The thing with antipsychotics is that in certain dosage in non-psychotic patients, they are excellent sedatives. That would be my guess as to why they are being prescribed for older people in care.

Think Seroquil for PTSD.

mothra wrote on Apr 1^st, 2022 at 7:57am:

greggerypeccary wrote on Apr 1^st, 2022 at 7:36am:


No! It's a lie! It's definitely a lie!

There's no money! Where is he going to get the money? I bet he hasn't said anything about that!

No I've been advocating every which way I can through state and federal MP's to do something..anything about Aged Care.

The problem with Aged Care isn't just about Aged Care anymore. Baby Boomers are coming through the Aged Care turnstiles every day in Australia and they're finding themselves stuck in ridiculous queues. Some are dying before their name comes up. And Lord help any Baby Boomer who has no children! Because right now it's the children ie Gen X and Gen Y who are in the firing line and are expected to drop everything and suddenly turn up and function as a fully qualified aged care worker who can work 14 hr daily shifts (with no break and no pay) 7 days a week.

These Gen X/Gen Y kids are bridging the gap which is now more like a bottomless trench! Their health has been affected and their lives changed dramatically.

Look I probably shouldn't have vented about my own personal battles in this area as I'm alive and even though I had a terrible car accident because of next level fatigue ... I didn't kill anyone nor did I die. Plus my marriage survived. But these risks were definitely there and I had no idea that others had divorced or had died whilst struggling to be unqualified and unpaid Aged Care Workers.

There's something else I've not gone into: I've held back but it needs to be made known and people need to start advocating for money and help because of it. This isn't going to be easy to type out (as I've been on the receiving end of it).

Aged parents who are being taken care of in home by their kids DO get frustrated/angry/confused/upset/overwhelmed by the changes in their daily routines as they see their children take on more and more of what they themselves once used to do. Eventually this tension breaks and they take it out on their kids by physically assaulting them. Some have been left bruised and stabbed and in shock because they understand why their parent is harming them but don't quite know what to do about it. There's nothing specifically out there for that type of abuse that can also cut through cultural taboos and boundaries. For me it was difficult to even talk about with my husband and I found myself covering my bruises and cuts by wearing long sleeved clothes and long hemmed skirts or jeans. I felt I was protecting my aged mum AND protecting my kids and husband from getting upset/angry if they were to see the raw reality of what full time aged caring was doing to me. So my silence was protecting everyone around me.  Later I was told by experts in Aged Care Management...that people like me were doing the wrong thing because our silence wasn't informing the system of how bad things were getting. You can imagine my reaction to this : it was classic institutional victim blaming. At its best.

The only way I could personally protect myself without saying anything to anyone I knew ... was to enlist the help of? Yep ... you got it! Our golden retriever! I started taking him with me every day. He loved being with me. And with mum too. She loved the therapy yes therapy this gorgeous being provided.

Eventually I got the dog named in Mum's Care Plan
as her official therapy dog and that dog took mum on little walks around the block and cuddled her unconditionally making her remember the love she had as a young mother towards her own little kids.

The abuse stopped within a few days. I had no knives thrown at me or plate frisbees coming at me. No more sharp steel bladed garden rakes were chasing me about the backyard as I was trying to pick up all the clothes off the line. All that nonsense stopped. Things settled down and finally I got my mum back in a good space so I could continue caring for her 7 days a week doing my usual 14 hr shifts Monday to Friday and all weekends. I was thankful for that dog! It meant I didn't have to be scared about being assaulted anymore.

Since then .... that dog and I have shared a special bond. And he knows why he gets a yummy freshly broiled chicken breast fillet cut up into bite sized pieces from me once a week too!

Apologies for sharing stuff so awful. But I do hope the ending gives you all some insight into how much we ought to respect our pets and each other.

Miss Mum 🥺i

Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Apr 1^st, 2022 at 9:11am:



They are not all awful ... but far too many of them are.

This is why we need legal euthanasia. Spare people's dignity.

mothra wrote on Apr 1^st, 2022 at 9:15am:


Yeah, I've heard some horror stories but I was very lucky with my Dad.

He was looked after very well in his nursing home.

And at the end they were very good with him, and even after he passed away they still treated him with dignity.

Very short staffed though - I would quite often help out with meals and basic cleaning, as sometimes there were only a few people rostered on.

Agree in principle with throwing money at aged care if it fixed the problems.

However, Albo's speech was pretty much vague waffle.

The unions want a 25% pay rise and to staff every home with a registered nurse 24/7 would very quickly evaporate extra dosh.

It is a huge problem but there wasn't any detail in Albo's stuff ... perhaps he will flesh it out during the election campaign.