Australia’s aged care crisis is worsening, with thousands of elderly individuals stranded in hospitals due to a severe shortage of residential aged care beds. As waitlists continue to grow, many older Australians face months of uncertainty, unable to transition into suitable care facilities.
A recent report by the Productivity Commission has revealed the staggering extent of the issue. In the 2022-23 financial year alone, 438,779 hospital bed days were occupied by elderly patients awaiting placement in residential aged care.
Queensland bore the heaviest burden, recording 163,342 hospital days lost to delayed aged care admissions, followed by New South Wales (150,496) and South Australia (58,549).
Victoria, by contrast, had the lowest number of hospital days (4305), thanks to the state’s Transition Care Program, which offers short-term support services to ease the transition from hospital to aged care.
The data underscores a growing mismatch between demand for aged care and available facilities. For every 1000 Australians aged 70 and over in 2024, there were just 67.5 aged care beds – a significant decline from 74.2 per 1000 in 2021.
The Northern Territory (47.6 beds per 1000) and Tasmania (58.9) have the lowest rates, while Victoria has the highest at 71.5 beds per 1000 seniors.
Since 2021, 103 aged care homes across Australia have shut down, while only 85 new facilities have opened. Although the total number of aged care beds has increased by 3842 since mid-2022, this growth has not kept pace with the nation’s ageing population.
The shortage is exacerbated by financial pressures, regulatory changes, and the rising cost of maintaining outdated facilities.
The closure of the Mercy Residential Aged Care Facility in Singleton, NSW, is a stark example of the crisis. The 44-bed home is set to close at the end of March, leaving long-time resident John Martin, 90, uncertain about his future.
“I’m worried about where I’ll go,” Mr Martin said. “At the moment, it looks like we might have to move out of town, and I don’t want that to happen. Singleton is my home.”
The facility’s management cited financial unviability as the reason for its closure, stating that smaller homes with fewer than 100 to 120 beds struggle to survive in the current aged care market.
Chairman of the board overseeing Mercy Aged Care, Charles Reis, explained that the facility had required $5 million in subsidies to stay afloat and faced significant renovation costs to meet modern standards.
For many elderly Australians like Mr Martin, the closure of aged care homes means extended hospital stays. Local GP Dr Tuan Au, who works in Singleton, said he currently has 10 elderly patients stuck in hospital, waiting for aged care placement. One patient has been waiting for more than six months.
“The homes are full, the hospital is full, we cannot take anybody else,” Dr Au said. “One of my patients had to go to a nursing home in Newcastle, an hour’s drive away.”
The situation is placing immense strain on hospitals, reducing their capacity to care for acute and emergency cases. Hospitals are not designed to provide long-term aged care, and the prolonged stays of elderly patients lead to bottlenecks in the healthcare system.
In response to the crisis, the Commonwealth Government has allocated $610.4 million to state initiatives aimed at transitioning older Australians out of hospitals and into aged care. However, experts argue that this funding does not address the root cause: the insufficient number of aged care beds.
Without significant investment in expanding aged care capacity and improving financial viability for smaller providers, Australia’s elderly population will continue to face distressing delays in accessing the care they need.
The growing waitlists, combined with ongoing closures of aged care facilities, signal an urgent need for policy reforms to ensure the dignity and well-being of the nation’s ageing citizens.
Another way of looking at this problem is that there needs to be an increase in funding for Home Care Packages (HCPs) was so that older people can receive more care at home, or Hospital at Home in the community.
With the co-payments about to be introduced in July under Support at Home (SaH) more older people will end up in hospital.
There needs to be an increase in support at home funding, NOT co-payments.
Similar to NDIS funding
There are beds, but facilities are closing full wings due to lack of staffing levels.
But how do we recruit and keep our staff?
We need to ensure there is adequate staffing levels in each unit in facilities.
I find most facilities will state ” we are in ratio, so we dont need more staff on the floor”. But they dont work on the floor, even though staff constantly make them aware of the increased high care needs, behaviours of concern, falls, etc.. they still do not out extra staff on. So of course no one wants to work or do extra hours.
Management need to meet staff and be transparent in their real reasons why they will not recruit extra staff.
I once told our local hospital in an interview that they need a eldery/dementia specific unit and nurses trained in dementia care, as they are left in emergency and generally arent cared for well or at all, and unfortunately same on the wards.
And now the new craze in aged care is bringing people over from overseas on these visas to combat the staff shortage.
But, they really havent thought about the residents ( once again).
Unfortunately, I’ve seen most of the people are unable to understand English let alone speak it. Residents are going to be even more isolated from society which increases depression, withdrawal and then be prescribed anti depressants when its not needed in the first place. Its just a whole snowball that seems to be getting bigger as the yrs go.
Once again, I could go on and on.
There needs to be protection not only for residents but for the carers as well. The amount of staff that are injured by abusive residents is unacceptable and definitely not taken seriously by anyone.