Just one in four aged care workers are fully vaccinated while 43% have received their first dose eight weeks out from the enforcement of a government mandate requiring them to be inoculated.
Data released by the federal health department shows 120,011 of 276,910 aged care workers in Australia have reported receiving a first dose, or 43.4%, while about 69,786 have reported receiving both doses, about 25.2%.
The vaccination of aged care workers was included as part of the highest priority phase, phase 1a, which was initially hoped to be completed within six weeks of the rollout’s February 2021 start.
The federal government has now mandated all workers receive a first dose by mid-September or be blocked from working in the industry. The mandate has been widely welcomed.
Despite early and significant failures, the aged care nurses union is now expressing some optimism about the rollout.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation says greater Pfizer supply, improved distribution channels to workers in their workplaces, and an improved sense of urgency from the federal government should boost the numbers in the coming weeks.
The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, and his staff are also more closely involved, the ANMF said, which is helping.
“Supply has always been an underpinning issue here, but they did react pretty strongly to our clear concern about blaming workers,” said the union’s federal secretary, Annie Butler.
Earlier in July, an alliance of industry groups and staff unions said the government’s language had unfairly placed blame on workers when the biggest barrier to vaccination has been the lack of in-reach teams visiting staff in their workplaces.
The department said about 27% of aged care workers, or 63,988 staff, have been vaccinated using in-reach services, including via in-reach clinics in Melbourne and Sydney, which have vaccinated 17,267 staff.
“Further in-reach services will be provided through the use of the commonwealth vaccination clinics, GPs, and our current vaccination teams,” the health department said.
“We also strongly encourage residential aged care providers to conduct their own on-site vaccination clinics. Providers may also provide this service to other residential aged care facilities.”
On Tuesday Anglicare Australia, which runs more than 20 facilities across New South Wales, warned its staff were eager to be vaccinated but were being hampered by failures with the government’s “messy and confusing” rollout.
“Aged care workers were told that they were a priority group for vaccination. Instead of getting easy access to vaccines, they were left to navigate a messy and confusing rollout,” said Kasy Chambers, Anglicare’s executive director.
It has been a common complaint from aged care providers.
This month RSL Lifecare urged the government to expand in-reach and fix its rollout, rather than blaming workers for the low vaccination rates.
It operates 28 aged care homes across Covid-hit NSW and the Australian Capital Territory and warned that only 27% of its staff had received a first dose and just 15% were fully vaccinated.
