Source:  The Hobart Mercury [DANIELLE McKAY]

TASMANIA'S aged-care sector is facing a staffing crisis and it is predicted to worsen as soon as next year.

By 2009 the number of staff leaving or retiring from the sector is set to outstrip those joining the already overstretched workforce.

Demand for aged care is set to soar, with Tasmania recording the fastest-growing ageing population in the nation -- by 2019 one in four Tasmanians will be aged over 65.

Aged-care providers are facing increasing challenges to lure workers because low pay and poor conditions turn carers and nurses away.

While the Federal Government has offered money for more nursing home beds, aged-care providers say they're unable to provide them because of funding and staffing limitations.

Tasmania's hospitals will also suffer because the number of elderly patients filling acute-care beds while they wait for residential nursing home placements is set to rise.

Aged and Community Services Tasmania chief executive Darren Matthewson said the industry's inability to meet nursing requirements was having dire affects.

He said there were similar shortages in trained carers. Earlier this year there had been 27 vacancies for carers in southern Tasmania alone.

"Staff shortages are the single biggest challenge that our industry faces," he said.

"We don't have the capacity for competitive wages like other industries."

He said a major shift in funding was needed.

For at least the past 12 years aged-care funding had failed to keep up with health inflation.

"There is a blatant disregard of the funding that is required to provide quality aged care," he said.

Mr Matthews said funding of an elderly patient in hospital could attract $600 to $900 a day but after discharge the same person would only get $170 a day in an aged-care bed.

"One day to the next their needs won't change that dramatically," he said.

At June 30 this year 526 Tasmanians were waiting for residential aged care, 103 of them in hospital beds -- 50 in the South, 43 in the North and 10 in the North-West.

TAFE Tasmania Aged Care and Enrolled Nursing team leader Christy Hunt said this year TAFE produced 100 Certificate Three aged-care workers and 75 enrolled nurses but it failed to meet demand.

"There are so many jobs in the sector, every graduate gets a job, we just can't keep up with the demand," Ms Hunt said.

Copyright News Limited – used with permission