Prof Joe Covid 19 Aged Care Podcast

Episode 29 Prof Joe brings three guests, Marie Crossland, Lisa Clinnick and Gabriel Villaflor. Together we examine the challenges of maintaining usual operations in an aged care home during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Aged care homes do not simply stop operating or caring for residents because of the pandemic. Aged care is an essential service.

Marie, Lisa and Gabriel, provide their insights into the day-to-day operations, adjusting existing models of care around to maintain lifestyle and managing dying. The three bring a wealth of lived experiences of managing and delivering aged care services. The podcast concludes with their top three issues to address for the future.

Episode 28 introduces our guest Professor Lyn Gilbert who is an infectious disease physician and a clinical microbiologist and has Master’s degree in Bioethics. Lyn is a senior researcher at the Marie Bashir Institute for Emerging Infections and Biosecurity and at Sydney Health Ethics at the University of Sydney. Listen to Lyn reflect and describe her account of outbreak management in care homes drawing on the experiences of Covid-19 outbreaks in two aged care facilities In Sydney NSW.

Episode 27 introduces Prof Joe's ninth action point - Continuing to operate during a COVID-19 Pandemic

Episode 26 introduces our guest Dr Rosie Forlano, an experienced psychiatrist who works at one of our largest public hospitals in Victoria.

Prof Joe and Dr Rosie Forlano explore the mental health challenges faced by aged care and health workers in managing the ethical and moral dilemmas arising from Covid-19 pandemic. The explore ‘moral injury’ defined as the psychological distress that results from actions, or the lack of them, which violate someone’s moral or ethical code.

Examples how this may arise include Following decisions made by others that you believe are unethical or against guidance you’re your profession; putting residents or workmates in danger because we are working outside our normal competency and; feeling let down because we are working with insufficient resources that could have been avoided.

Episode 25 introduces our guest Dr Simon Brown-Greaves, a psychologist, dispute negotiator and wellbeing and organisational consultant in leadership as well as the Director and CEO of FBG Group.

Prof Joe and Simon explore the stress and psychological well being. Simon has personal experience with Covid-19. Simon was on a cruise ship in South America, then evacuated and quarantined in Sydney where he had an infection with Covid-19.

Listen to Simon explore and explain the threats to our mental wellbeing during Covid-19, how people respond differently to the stress, how to adapt and how to help each other. Prof Joe and Simon also examine the issue of disenfranchised grief which is more likely to occur in an aged care setting. Ken Doka, coined the term ‘disenfranchised grief’ to describe “grief that results when a person experiences a significant loss and the resultant grief is not openly acknowledged, socially validated, or publicly mourned.” For example, this often occurs after a death of an older person with dementia who was living in aged care.

Episode 24 introduces Prof Joe's eighth point - Mental Health and Well Being at Times of Crisis.

Episode 23 introduces our guest Dr Professor John Banja who is a Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and a medical ethicist at the Center for Ethics at Emory University in Atlanta.

Prof Joe and Prof John Banja have a wide-ranging discussion about why care staff and professionals need to be and feel protected as they can save others, we draw on the experience of the USA to explore the things that we expected to happen but didn’t and explore the extraordinary ways that a pandemic exposes the weak spots and imperfections of a culture, e.g., those most at risk are the least protected.

Episode 22 introduces our guest Dr Shelly Jeffcott, an experienced psychologist who studies, teaches and applies the science of human behavior to improve patient care. Shelly brings a different view to the usual and is currently the Strategy Implementation and Quality Improvement Manager at Scottish Ambulance Service Glasgow, United Kingdom.

Prof Joe and Shelly we examine how to protect staff and maintain trust in times of crises. We explore how to improve our teamwork, and how people who are empowered are better at solving the unexpected problems. Shelly explains the five dangerous elements that can destroy teamwork (lack of trust; pretending to agree to avoid conflict; lack of commitment; not holding team members to account and; focussing on personal rather than team goals) and how to avoid this from happening.

Episode 21 introduces Prof Joe's seventh point - Accessing treatment in desperate times