Health organisation Gidgee Healing has announced it will withdraw management of several aged care services in the Gulf of Carpentaria due to underfunding and staff shortages.
Since January, 2021, Gidgee Healing has been managing the 15-bed Kukatja Place aged care centre in Normanton, the 10-bed Ngooderi House in Doomadgee, and the Kuba Natha Hostel on Mornington Island, a 15-bed facility.
Gidgee Healing aims to cease managing the centres by June 30.
The organisation will be the second health service in recent years to withdraw from aged care in those communities due to inadequate financial support from government.
The move highlights how historical underfunding of basic services is fuelling the health crisis in bush communities, local leaders said.
"It's a mess. The problem is just getting bigger and bigger," mayor of the Carpentaria Shire Council Jack Bawden said.
The council holds concerns that the lack of funding will deter other health providers from stepping in to fill the gap left by Gidgee Healing.
"There is a party interested but they are not going to commit themselves until they've got something in black and white that states it is going to be a viable proposition," Mr Bawden said.
"We cannot turn our backs on our elderly residents who rely on this care."
'An impossible scenario'
In a statement to ABC North West, a spokesperson for Gidgee Healing said: "The decision not to renew the current management agreement … has been necessary due to … chronic shortages of affordable workforce and inadequate staff infrastructure."
Previously, not-for-profit North West Remote Health (NWRH) managed the centres but pulled out after it, too, struggled to provide services due to a lack of funding, Mr Bawden said.
That is despite the fact that funding for the three aged care services had increased by 50 per cent since 2019, according to a statement from the Department of Health and Aged Care.
Mr Bawden said greater investment was needed to quell the high turnover of providers, which then placed stress on other bare-bones health services in the remote communities.
"It is really concerning. Medical resources are already stretched. It's really becoming an impossible scenario," he said.
"Somewhere along the line, the government, whether it's state or federal or both, has to loosen their purse strings and spend the money that's required to give these people the care they deserve."
Focus on staffing needed
Mr Bawden said the funding model needed to shift to focus on attracting staff out to remote areas with better salaries and housing.
"The salaries on offer are easily matched by positions in the cities and we have a housing crisis in this region," he said.
"Unless we can offer proper housing, there's going to be a lot of fly-in, fly-out staff and the problem with that is they become absolutely slammed with work and are exhausted during the time they are in the communities," he said.
Although the likelihood of health and care systems improving in the gulf seemed "next to zero," Mr Bawden said a decline in standards was not an option.
"At the end of the day, whatever government department it is, whatever agency or council it is, we can't turn our back on these people."
