Quirindi Care Services solves CRITICAL staff shortage issue with exceptional results
Eloura featured in ACCPA magazine this week, celebrating the success of our recent recruitment program – with five empathic, dedicated and permanent staff from Timor Leste and the Pacific Islands joining our team.
“The ladies are already such a huge part of our Eloura family and our residents love hearing about their families and lives back home,” Kim Riley – General Manager at QCS.
Access the full article here (page 71); https://www.accpa.asn.au/extlink/agedcaretoday/ACCPA-Aged-Care-Today-Magazine-Summer-2023.pdf
Eloura Aged Care – which operates within Quirindi Care Services (QCS) in New South Wales – has solved the critical issue of staff shortages with an out-of-the-box approach, employing five qualified aged care staff from the Pacific Islands and Timor-Leste.
QCS sought help from Health+ People who specialise in filling gaps in the Australian workforce when local workers are unable to be sourced, using the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.
After the ‘Great Resignation’ across aged care during COVID-19, QCS found themselves requiring a secure workforce. “At Quirindi, we have struggled with the same staff shortages that we are seeing across the board in aged care,” said QCS General Manager Kim Riley.
“We aim to be a residential aged care facility that provides quality care, therefore we needed to increase staffing. “Our staff are the key ingredient essential for us to achieve our mission statement – to provide a place where older people feel at home, safe and valued.”
Kim explained that out-of-the-box thinking was necessary to build her team. “We wanted to provide our residents with a familiar roster of staff, it’s so important for our residents to get to know and trust the people who are caring for them, but despite recruitment drives we were not able to secure our workforce locally, so we tried something new,” she said.
“Finding the PALM program has been a blessing, not only are these ladies qualified, but they are amazing at what they do, they are so happy to be working in Australia and have sacrificed so much to be here with us.”
Conversations between QCS and Health+ People commenced in November 2022, starting with an audit of how many staff were required and with which skills, and afterwards it unfolded like any other recruitment process.
“Oxana (from Health+ People) organised a short-list of candidates to interview, who she interviewed personally on our behalf, using our standard interview questions. After watching these recorded interviews with Oxana’s help we were able to select the appropriate candidates,” Kim said.
When asked why there is such great need for the PALM program, Health+ People’s General Manager Oxana Reed replied, “Aged care is not an attractive industry for our young people and the pool of Australian workers who want to do this job is very shallow.
“While we do have some wonderful aged care workers joining the industry, who have the right skillset and personal attributes, the workforce in Australia isn’t sufficient to meet supply.
“Anyone who’s interacted with Pacific Islanders can agree, you can just feel the compassion, it seems to be ingrained in their culture and in their upbringing, so it makes a lot of sense to invite them to work in Australia, through the PALM scheme.
“The wage for the PALM workers’ role here supports between seven and eight people in their home countries, which is spent on establishing businesses, education and housing. So it’s a win-win, for everyone.”
L-R: Agripina Mendonca Salsinha (Timor Leste), General Manager Health+ People Oxana Reed, Verenaisi Vulaono (Fiji), Joana Correia (Timor Leste), Benedita Maria Dos Reis (Timor Leste), Betty Jay Ulasi (Solomon Islands).
For QCS, eliminating the turnover of staff prevalent in aged care particularly since COVID-19, has been a huge benefit.
“We have created a more efficient workplace, better employee morale and of course, our residents are much happier when they have familiar faces looking after them,” Kim said.
The new staff members also appreciate feeling valued.
“After we introduced ourselves to the residents, they were so welcoming and grateful to us for helping them,” said care worker Benedita Maria Dos Reis, who is from Timor Leste and has worked at Eloura since August.
Kim said employing these staff through the PALM Program has helped improve the standard of care at Eloura – but it’s not just in terms of the one-to-one relationships being forged, it’s also taken the stress off existing staff.
“The ladies are already such a huge part of our Eloura family and our residents love hearing about their families and lives back home,” she said. “All our staff are essential to helping us achieve our mission statement – to provide a place where older people feel at home, safe and valued – and caring for our staff helps enormously.
“Since having the five ladies arrive, we have employees who will enjoy their first holiday in two years, because we now have a secure workforce.
