Prime Minister Scott Morrison will hand $209 million in cash payments to aged care workers in response to mounting pressure over the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in the virus-ravaged sector.
The commitment will be revealed when Mr Morrison fronts the National Press Club on Tuesday as he tries to reset the agenda after a summer marred by the spread of the Omicron variant.
Mr Morrison will also announce a billion-dollar boost to the country's research sector during an address at the National Press Club on Tuesday.
The cash handouts for aged care workers come amid concerns they’re struggling under the immense pressure caused by COVID-19 ripping through these facilities.
“That’s why I am announcing today the Government is providing a further $209 million to support the aged care workforce to continue to care for older Australians through the pandemic,” Mr Morrison will say, according to extracts of his speech seen by SBS News.
The response will see two payments of up to $400 each paid to aged care workers in government subsidised home care, as well as aged care workers providing direct care, food or cleaning services in residential care.
The cash bonus would be paid on a pro-rata basis on hours worked and the first payment would be made in February, with the second to come by early May.
Mr Morrison will say that the commitment builds on $393 million provided over three payments to 234,000 aged care workers earlier in the pandemic.
As COVID-19 has rapidly spread through the sector, there have been 389 deaths recorded in aged care in January alone, more than throughout the whole of 2021 at 282.
According to data released last Friday, COVID outbreaks were active in 1,261 residential aged care facilities nationally, including 555 in NSW and 296 in Victoria.
Aged care providers have warned they’re struggling to stay afloat with about 30 per cent of workers off sick or isolated at home.
Concerns have also been raised that some aged care residents are being forced to go without showers and meals, and have had their wounds left undressed due to the worker shortage.
Labor’s health spokesperson Mark Butler said some facilities were struggling to get access to rapid antigen tests and personal protection equipment (PPE), promised to them by the federal government.
“Yet again Scott Morrison has failed in one of his most important jobs - that is to keep vulnerable older Australians in Commonwealth aged care facilities safe from this virus,” he told reporters on Monday.
The federal government has also admitted its plan to roll out booster doses to all aged care facilities by the end of January had been postponed.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Monday that only facilities who had suffered COVID-19 outbreaks, or saw infections to vaccination providers, have had booster shots delayed.
"Approximately 99 per cent of facilities are expected to report completion today," he told reporters.
Mr Hunt was also pressed about whether more could be done to prevent the rising spread of cases and deaths occurring in the sector.
He said the federal government was reviewing its response on a daily basis and working with age care providers, describing it as an "absolute top priority".
“We’ve provided over … 100 million units of PPE in aged care, over 7.6 million rapid antigen tests and that’s increasing consistently each week,” he said.
Mr Hunt also said approximately 60 per cent of people who had died in aged care were in palliative care.
"The definition is that they have passed with COVID and they are absolutely rightly counted as a national loss," he said.
He added that approximately 25 per cent of those to have died were either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.
The federal government also recently committed $17.7 billion to the aged care sector in last May's budget, in response to a damning royal commission's report, addressing what it described as “neglect” in the sector.
Billion-dollar boost to Australia's research sector
The $1.6 billion program, called Australia's Economic Accelerator, will seek to turn early-stage research ideas into commercial successes.
It will form part of a $2.2 billion plan to enhance Australian research, which also includes an expansion of a CSIRO initiative backing start-up companies and investing in 1800 industry-focused PhDs.
Mr Morrison said while Australian research was often classed as world-standard, it was underperforming commercially.
"The fund will allow Australian innovators to access funding opportunities for each stage of their project provided they can continue to prove project viability and commercial potential," Mr Morrison will say in the speech.
"We need to accelerate the forging of linkages between Australian industry and Australian university researchers, we need to find and develop a new breed of researcher entrepreneurs in Australia."
With additional reporting by AAP.
