Aged care food service staff are being re-classified as personal care workers in a bid to stretch resources as facilities in the sector leave residents rife with malnourishment. or signup to continue reading The insight comes after a study of more than 700 residents at 10 facilities in NSW, South Australia and Queensland revealed 32 per cent were malnourished and six per cent were severely malnourished. United Workers Union's Aged Care Deputy Director, Catalina Gonzalez, said the conditions were compounded by aged care workers in food service being reclassified.
She said this was done in an underhanded effort by providers to boost the number of care time minutes counted in line with mandated care time allocated to residents. "These moves on reclassification have the perverse effect of stretching responsibilities away from food preparation when in reality the roles should be solely based on much-needed quality of food preparation and service," Ms Gonzalez said. The Monash and Griffith University research called for an urgent screening program as many aged-care providers lacked processes to detect the issue.
Lead author Jonathan Foo said malnutrition was a serious health issue associated with a higher risk of falls, infections, hospital admissions and death. "One of the problems we see is that facilities don't even know who is malnourished in the first place, so they don't even know where to start," Dr Foo told AAP. "We believe aged care facilities and the people we speak to on.