As the number of deaths in Australian aged care homes mounted this summer, Spiros Vasilakis watched on in disbelief.
It was 18 months ago when his 81-year-old mother, Maria, was among 50 residents who died during a COVID-19 outbreak, at Melbourne's St Basil's aged care home.
Many spent their finals days alone, malnourished and dehydrated largely because the federal government couldn't find enough workers to replace staff who were close contacts.
After multiple inquiries, including a five-week coronial inquest, Mr Vasilakis and other families who lost loved ones at St Basil's hoped state and federal authorities would learn from the disaster.
"It seems we've learned absolutely nothing, nothing at all," Mr Vasiliakis said.
"One of the major things that showed with St Basil's was the lack of staff, that happened through them catching COVID and then you had the residents not being able to be properly cared for.
"That's where we are now.
"We have the ADF (Australian Defence Force) in there because we don't have enough staff."
Hundreds die in aged care across the country within weeks
In just six weeks since the start of the year, 742 people have died in aged care homes across Australia.
The latest outbreak peaked in late January, when the virus was reported in more than 1,200 aged care homes around the country and there are still 645 homes battling COVID-19 outbreaks.
Christine Golding lost her mother, Efraxia, in the St Basil's outbreak in Melbourne.
She sat through the five-week coronial inquest into St Basil's and has been shocked to see similar problems occurring again.
"The federal government, in my opinion, has failed older Australians," Ms Golding said.
"It's inexcusable. They cannot say that they were taken by surprise. We have got whole departments of clever people [who] are paid to do this research."
Her anger at the situation was exacerbated this week when she received an email from her local Liberal MP, Tim Wilson, spruiking the federal government's record on aged care.
"I felt quite offended and insulted," Ms Golding said.
The email said aged care residents should be able to "live with dignity and security", but Ms Golding said her mother Efraxia's last days were anything but dignified.
"I know this is a pro-Liberal seat, but we are not stupid Mr Wilson. I know what happened — I lived through it," she said.
Mr Wilson declined an interview with the ABC but his office provided a statement.
"Mr Wilson has continuously engaged with aged care residents and providers in Goldstein, prior to, during and after both the pandemic and the Royal Commission," it said.
The federal Aged Care Minister, Richard Colbeck, also declined to be interviewed, but he defended the Coalition's record in a Senate Estimates hearing this week.
"All the measures that we have taken in conjunction with the sector have led to an improved performance of the sector in the last two years in respect of COVID and I will continue to argue that," Mr Colbeck said.
Pandemic run by 'guess work' contributed to aged care deaths, expert says
Monash University aged care expert Joseph Ibrahim said Australia's aged care sector was already struggling before the pandemic.
"It was under-staffed, under-resourced, there weren't good structures in place," Professor Ibrahim said.
He says that, during the pandemic, those problems had been exacerbated by the inability of federal and state authorities to coordinate their responses.
And, after disasters such as that at St Basil's, Professor Ibrahim argued those authorities had not properly examined their own conduct.
"When we reviewed what happened with each wave, we only reviewed what happened on the ground, we didn't review how the leaders and the people setting policy behaved or acted," Professor Ibrahim said.
He said that, while politicians should take their share of the blame, the general public needs to take more of an interest in the plight of elderly Australians.
"The road to our freedom is littered by the bodies of our grandparents and parents who died from COVID and we all have accepted this by not putting far greater pressure on our local parliament's MPs," Professor Ibrahim said.
With the federal election just months away, and a Victorian state election in November, Mr Vasilakis hopes his mother's story will help make elderly, vulnerable Australians a central issue.
"Until there comes a time that a politician ends up — or a political party ends up — losing votes or their positions because of aged care, it's the only time it's going to be noticed," he said.
