Aged care providers are telling essential visitors to find their own rapid tests or be denied entry as the industry grapples with what it describes as a “dire need” for the devices.
The huge demand for rapid antigen tests is posing yet another Covid-related barrier to those wanting to visit their loved ones in aged care, something crucial for residents’ physical and emotional wellbeing.
The commonwealth says it has provided 6.6m rapid tests so far to the sector and providers have been instructed to give them to visitors, in cases where providers are mandating a negative rapid test before entry.
The measure is designed to prevent isolation among residents by relieving visitors of the burden of paying for and hunting down large volumes of rapid tests to facilitate their regular visits to loved ones.
But Guardian Australia has seen evidence of at least two providers mandating that visitors record a negative rapid antigen test but telling them they must source their own due to shortages.
Both the Council on the Ageing (Cota), a peak group for older Australians, and the main workforce union, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), said the uncertain supply of rapid antigen tests in the sector was posing significant problems.
Cota chief executive, Ian Yates, said it was “true that you will find providers that are not [providing rapid tests]” to visitors, and said he had raised the issue through the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee.
Yates said erecting barriers to visitation threatened residents “physical and mental and emotional wellbeing, particularly for people with dementia”.
“In principle, if you’re a regular visitor, and the home is requiring [a rapid test], it should be providing you with the RAT,” he said. “And it shouldn’t be requiring them of you any more often than staff.”
Leading Age Services Australia (Lasa), the industry’s national peak body, said the government was currently giving priority to getting supplies to facilities experiencing an outbreak.
But spokesperson Sean Rooney said the government had yet to fully commence the proactive distribution of rapid antigen tests to providers not experiencing an outbreak, after announcing plans to do so on 23 December.
“Notwithstanding an improvement in RAT and PPE supplies last week, many providers are still in dire need of RATs and PPE. Lasa staff have been escalating these requests with government,” he said.
Rooney said the sector was continuing to meet with ministers and the department on a range of pressing issues posed by Omicron, including “a stable and secure program for the distribution of RATs and PPE to residential aged care providers and home care operators”.
“The department has been prioritising distribution of PPE and RAT and provided assurance that the supply chain issues which have hampered distribution are being addressed,” he said.
ANMF federal assistant secretary, Lori-Anne Sharp, said staff who worked at facilities with rapid test mandates were being put in positions of enormous stress.
Sharp said the high demand for rapid tests meant providers were closely protecting the supplies they did have.
“If residents’ families could access them for free in the community, it wouldn’t be an issue. But they can’t,” she said. “In Germany, they’ve got them in vending machines. They send them to the home in some countries.”
The industry has adopted its own code for visitation during the pandemic. It requires that residents are always permitted to have at least one essential visitor. Essential visitors are deemed either partners in care, named visitors, or anyone in the case of end of life care.
“Access by essential visitors should always be facilitated on a regular basis,” the code says.
Aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, said visiting arrangements were restricted through state and territory public health orders, which varied between jurisdictions.
The Commonwealth’s provision of rapid antigen tests, he said, was designed to “support screening of all entrants to facilities”.
“Delivery of rapid antigen test kits is currently being prioritised to facilities in outbreak or recent exposure,” he said.
“More than 78 million RATs have been purchased by the Government, and these are being prioritised for aged care.”
Colbeck said the government was aiming to provide an “updated guide” to allow for more social interaction for residents, given Omicron was “at this stage appearing not to have as significant health impact”.
Health minister, Greg Hunt, said on Monday the federal government had focused its supply of rapid tests to the aged care sector.
“We have been in the market and supplying since August, and we have been able to provide continuous supply of over 6.6m rapid antigen tests to aged care,” he said.
“And so, in relation to priority populations, that is one of the things that we have been able to do, is to foresee, to acquire and to supply throughout the course of not just Omicron, but before Omicron ever existed.”
