PROFOUNDLY GRATEFUL
6:00 AM, and while most of the country is hitting snooze or grabbing a latte, a quiet miracle is unfolding in nursing homes across Australia. In my mum’s facility, it’s the sound of soft footsteps and a gentle "good morning" delivered in an accent that might have originated in Manila, Mumbai, Lahore, or Dhaka. These are the people holding the front line of our ageing society; the underpaid, overworked, and frequently overlooked backbone of our community. It is high time we started singing their praises from the rooftops because they are doing the heavy lifting that keeps this country’s conscience intact.
When we talk about aged care, we often hide behind clinical terms like "hygiene maintenance" or "care plans," but let’s be honest about what that actually looks like on the ground. These workers are the ones who take my mum to the toilet and wipe her without a flinch, preserving her dignity when she can no longer do it for herself. They shower her, clothe her, brush her hair, and clean her dentures, ensuring she looks and feels like a human being. They perform the exhausting daily rituals of making her bed, cleaning her room, and bringing her food, all while maintaining a level of patience that is nothing short of saintly. Every single morning they turn her TV on, and every night they turn it off; she doesn't understand a lick of what’s on the screen anymore, but they know that the routine provides her a sense of rhythm in a world that has become a blur.
The emotional labour is just as intense as the physical. These staff, representing every coloor of the rainbow, sit down for a short chat when they have a spare second, even though Mum is non-communicative. They treat her like a person with a history, not just a room number. They take the time to contact me to discuss her nutrition and general care, ensuring I’m kept in the loop. And perhaps most impressively, they put up with it when she’s having a rough day and chucks a massive hissy fit. They absorb that frustration and anger with a grace that most of us couldn't muster on our best days.
Yet, despite this, we still have to listen to the absolute bile from certain lowlife, racist assholes - including politicians and media personalities who should know better. They bang on about immigration as if it’s a plague, using it as a cheap dog-whistle to stir up fear. It is rank hypocrisy hard to stomach. If the Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Filipino staff, and all the other migrant workers, stopped showing up to work tomorrow, the aged care sector in this country would collapse within hours. Our elderly would be left sitting in the dark, hungry and alone. The same applies to hospitals.
These workers bring more than just their labour; they bring a profound cultural respect for elders that is often missing from the broader Australian conversation. They treat our parents with the same reverence they would show their own, often while being paid a pittance and facing a political climate that treats them like they are a problem to be solved rather than the solution they clearly are. To the staff at my mum’s home: I see you, I value you, and I am profoundly grateful for the love and care you show a woman who can’t always thank you herself. You are the best of us, and it’s about time the rest of the country acknowledged it.
