The shocking abuse in our nursing homes:

According to the most recent 2011-2012 report on the operation of the aged care act 1997, there are 187,941 people living in 2725 residential aged care facilities across Australia. There are many cases -- too many -- where deaths in nursing homes are hastened by the poor standard of care. In recent years, there have been instances of residents starved, burnt, drowned or even strangled while in care. Part of the problem is the lack of supervision of the residents by “caring”, capable” staff. It stands to reason that a patient could not have fallen into the water fountain at her nursing home if she had been properly supervised. Likewise, it would be more difficult for evil people to “prey” upon residents if there were plenty of staff on hand, keeping an eye on things. Lynda Saltarelli, of the community-based Aged Care Crisis team, says many people are amazed, when embarking on the frustrating process of trying to find a nursing home bed, to discover there is no mandatory staff-to-reside t ratio. All that is required under the Aged Care Act 1997 is that each centre provides what is known as an "adequate number of appropriately skilled staff" or "sufficient" staff for the number of residents.