Below is a copy of the letter sent to all staff at Allambie Heights Village Pty Ltd on Aged Care Employee Day 2020.

Dear Staff Colleagues,

Happy Aged Care Employee Day, 7 August 2020!

Across Australia today, millions of people will be showing their appreciation of you and thinking about you. There will be wonderful stories on television so make sure to have the TVs on around the Residential Aged Care Facility from early morning. As Aged Care Employees we will be in the newspapers and on radio channels and so it should be.

It has been a difficult few years for our industry and it continues to be with the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the Covid-19 Global Pandemic and often poor, irresponsible and unbalanced stories that further challenge the work we do and the contribution that we make to our older persons. But we are not alone.

There are 360,000 of us working in Australia in Home Care and in Residential Aged Care Facilities providing quality, compassionate and human caring services to 1.4 million older persons who need us. Australia needs us and more so now. We are saving lives against a threat of an infectious disease for which there is no cure yet. But because of each of you, we are contributing to winning this fight so far.

On 3 August 2020, we celebrated at Allambie Heights Village Residential Aged Care Facility, ‘Fortress Allambie’, 125 days of no colds, no flu and no Covid-19 among our residents. This is an amazing health metric and it is due to our and your high hygiene and care standards. We must keep this high regime of hygiene going and we must continue to be responsible outside of work too in where we go and with the people, we decide to meet. And our close family members are part of this too.

Yes, this is a sacrifice and we and all Australians may need to choose carefully about going to particular venues or shops or even seeing some people because we don’t want to become infected. And we don’t want to pass this infection on to others. We have never been faced with such a challenge and we never thought that our family and friends could be possibly involved in affecting our work environment. These are strange times.

That is why each of you as an Aged Care Employee is ‘Super Special’ because you do things that most people don’t choose to do. You provide the most personal and delicate care to an adult older person in their bathroom, in their room, in their lounge, in their total living environment. You feed them when they can’t feed themselves, embrace them when they are sad, you laugh with them, you listen to them, you dance with them, you befriend them, you buy presents for them out of your own money (I know), you look after them when they are sick and you are with them and hold them when they are dying.

No one should ever defeat your tenacity to do good, to respect our older persons and to protect them. You know that you have chosen a special line of work and I hope and
I believe that as an Industry, Australia will increasingly recognise us and you, your specialism and your uniqueness. I am very proud of you and to be working with you.

Now enjoy the compliments. Happy Aged Care Employee Day!

Ciarán Foley
Chief Executive Officer.
7 August 2020.