Hundreds of aged care homes across the Hunter and Central Coast are dealing with severe staffing shortages brought on by a huge surge in COVID cases.
There are now outbreaks in 525 aged care homes in New South Wales, at least 47 of which are in Newcastle, the Hunter Valley and Central Coast.
The latest data from the Commonwealth shows the number of COVID-19 cases at Hunter region nursing homes almost tripled from 121 to 338 in the last month.
The number of aged care homes hit by COVID outbreaks in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley also rose from 19 in early January to 29 by February.
One of the worst-affected local nursing homes was the RFBI Benhome Masonic Village at Maitland, where there were COVID cases among 14 residents and 23 staff in the first week of February.
The situation is similar on the Central Coast, with the number of nursing homes impacted by COVID outbreaks increasing nine-fold over the past month.
There are now at least 18 aged care homes affected, up from two early in January.
Woodport Aged Care at Erina appears to be one of the hardest hit.
According to the February data the nursing home had 52 staff with COVID.
Defence help 'quite likely'
The chief executive of peak body Aged and Community Services Australia, Paul Sadler, said homes were struggling to cope.
"The Hunter has been one of the worst affected regions in the country," he said.
Mr Sadler was unable to say if the region would benefit from the recent announcement by the federal government that the Australian Defence Force could fill the gaps.
"We've had anywhere between 25 to 50 per cent of staff affected by COVID, so it's had a major impact on staffing," he said.
"We understand from discussions with the ADF and the federal Department of Health yesterday that the ADF is going to be directed to individual homes across NSW that have the highest impact in terms of numbers of staff off.
"So it remains to be seen whether the Hunter will have help from the ADF, but I'd say given the scale of the impact it is quite likely we'll see the defence force help with at least a couple of homes in the region."
Mr Sadler said while those being cared for at home had also been impacted.
"We've had similar levels of staff absences due to COVID across local home care services," he said.
"That's affecting things like personal care, domestic assistance, nursing care for people in their own homes — we've had a lot of service cancellations."
