“Just Say Sorry For Goodness Sake”, says Toby Hall, CEO StVincent’s Health Australia

The Governor-General was handed the report of the aged care royal commission on Friday. It will be made public in the coming week. Overlaying its considerations has been Australia’s 909 deaths from COVID-19, more than two-thirds of them (685) people in aged care facilities. It has to be recognised that COVID accounts for an extremely small share of deaths in Australia, and even deaths of senior citizens. 127,082 Australians aged 70 and over died in 2019. To date 851 in that age group have died of COVID. Some good might come from these sad deaths if they prompted us to think about where we are likely to die. Read More

Retired medical professionals and community advocates would undertake random inspections of aged care facilities under a new plan being proposed by a national advocacy group for older Australians. Greysafe, a not for profit organisation that works to prevent the abuse, neglect and exploitation of older Australians, will write to the Federal Minister for Aged Care... Read More

A few weeks ago, we published an article titled, ‘Rough treatment in aged care is not assault, says magistrate: Four Corners’. The article was viewed by more than 40,000 readers through our social media channels, and received hundreds of comments. Among those to respond was a retired expert in his field who wishes to remain anonymous, but his thoughts on the... Read More