As we mentioned earlier, the Prime Minister is speaking after cabinet’s national security committee meeting on a range of issues.
In addition to changes to border arrangements for international arrivals, cabinet has also decided on new arrangements for the Australian Defence Force to offer limited support to aged care homes dealing with a crisis as a result of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Morrison said 10 teams of defence personnel would be set up to provide “quite targeted support into the aged care sector in extreme situations, some of the most difficult situations”.
The teams will be able to go into facilities with 24 hours notice and work with state health departments and public health agencies.
They will include a registered nurse team leader, medical technicians and other personnel to support general duties needs.
The aged care sector last week said a quarter of shifts each week were going uncovered with staff in isolation or recovering from COVID-19.
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Mr Morrison acknowledged this was a significant and difficult issue.
“When you have large numbers of people taken out of the workforce, that is very hard to deal with and there is no simple answer,” he said.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the latest update from his department was that at the moment, about 5900 staff out of a workforce or 280,000 were furloughed because of COVID-19 – the equivalent to about 5 per cent of the workforce at the impacted facilities.
He noted the issues around staff shortages, limitations on visitors and aged care homes going into lockdowns had been the hardest part of balancing people’s safety and their mental health during the pandemic.
“It’s a deep human issue that we have wrestled with frankly, and we are leaning now back towards opening up and that’s the medical advice on health as well as mental health and emotional reasons,“he said.
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