The CEO of the peak industry body, Aged and Community Care Victoria, Gerard Mansour, must live on a different planet from most of us.

Just this last week he stated that mandated staff/resident ratios were 'outdated and inappropriate'. He claims that this is because 'staff skills were matched to residents' needs which can vary substantially from one location to the next'.

Tell that to the overstretched and undervalued carers and nurses who feel that they can never get the job done or to the residents who must wait for long periods to receive the care they urgently need.

There are mandated staffing levels in child care centres, kindergartens, schools and hospitals. They, too, cater for people with different levels of  need in different locations.

Why should vulnerable frail, older people miss out on this protection?

The point is that there should be a basic MINIMUM level of staffing and then further staff provided when there is a need for a higher level of care.

It is hard to find anyone other than those in the provider lobby who is not shocked when learning about this absence of mandated staffing in aged care. The nurses have been telling us for years. Just recently, Ged Kearney from the Australian Nurses Federation made the point yet again.

She reminds us that… 'nurses and personal carers working in nursing homes are paid at least 10 per cent less than their counterparts in hospitals - with the wages gap worse in some locations. Along with the absence of any minimum number of staff for each resident, this has led to a dramatic slide in nurse numbers in aged care.'

Time and time again we hear about the appallingly low staff levels that occur in some homes and about the toll it takes on both staff and residents. Too often good staff leave because they do not get the job satisfaction they require – nurses like the one quoted in Sunday’s Melbourne Herald Sun. 

'The nurse said she had refused to work at one home in Melbourne's south east after recently being one of four staff -- and the only Division 1 nurse -- assigned to work overnight in the 128-bed home and its additional 60-bed low-care unit.

'One man had a fall, sustained a head injury and should have been on 15-minute obs (observations). I patched him up, but I didn't have time to keep a close eye on him,' she said.'

The truth is that there has been a decline in the number of nurses working in aged care. Much more is being asked of those who do remain in the sector.

Our homes are depending more and more on carers – some of whom are not given the training and skills to perform the task adequately.

Is this what we really what we want when we can no longer look after ourselves?