A former aged care worker has blown the whistle on what she says are appalling conditions and practices that permeate the industry including harassment and abuse. Adelaide women and experienced aged care worker Eleanor Morgan, 36, spoke to 9 News about why she quit the aged care sector after continued harassment and complaints about conditions went unheard. Miss Morgan is an active and outspoken member of a national aged care reform group and is campaigning for change. Her list of gripes with the industry include a shortage of professional carers while also being significantly underpaid for the work they are expected to put in. ‘If you’ve got 30 people and you’re spread out over a large section, you can’t watch everybody at once and you’ve got people who are high needs, they need to be monitored constantly,’ she said. Unpaid overtime was another issue Ms Morgan said should be addressed as she was required to be at work up to an hour after her knock off time to make sure she completed the required paperwork before calling it a day. The straw that broke the camel’s back and finally lead Ms Morgan to call it quits in the aged care sector was her support of a complaint leading to her being harassed in the work place. ‘I saw my friend bullied out of her job for speaking up. We were chased down the hall by a manager screaming accusations at us,’ she said. Ms Morgan claims she was then the target of intimidation and harassment for her support of a co-worker and friend, going so far as being ‘screamed at’ and ‘physically intimidated’. She believes a fundamental lack of federal funding is having a detrimental and long term impact on the aged care sector, combined with the perceived ‘greed’ of the retirement home operators.
