There are currently 13,998 COVID-19 cases among residents in 1261 residential facilities across the nation and some 14,257 staff cases. And shockingly, there have already been 438 COVID deaths in aged care this year - more than double the total for the entirety of 2021.

As many homes in the area battle coronavirus outbreaks, government promises that providers can access a surge workforce have fallen short.

Evan Robertson, the chief executive of the Forrest Centre in Wagga, has had a COVID outbreak at his homes in recent weeks, losing staff in the double digits, and said he is "quite concerned about staffing" his homes.

"The surge workforce, essentially, is a nice idea that does not exist at the moment," he said.

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Mr Robertson said that when his homes were in the midst of the recent outbreak he tried to access government surge staff to no avail, but he believes that is because there simply aren't enough people in the area available to work in aged care.

"Staffing has been an issue for quite some time, it's been exacerbated by COVID. But, to be perfectly frank, it's probably why the industry went through a royal commission in the first place ... if you can't get staffing right, that's when cracks appear in other areas," he said.

Mr Robertson said that recommendations from the royal commission regarding staff wages, or making aged care a more attractive career, have not come into place yet and until they do, staffing issues will continue.

Staffing issues are not only affecting the residential aged-care sector. One care coordinator for a Wagga home care provider, who asked not to be named, said that her company has lost eight assistants in nursing over the past three months, as people are not willing to be working in the community while Omicron spreads.

"We are extremely short staffed," they said. "When you've got eight staff down, you've literally got 500 hours of services in the community a week that you can't fill."

And they said that there is nothing they can do to fill these hours as other providers to perform to find themselves in the same situation.

"So services just aren't getting provided by any providers because they're just so short staffed.

"It's pushing our elderly into nursing homes that don't need to be in nursing homes. But then again, our nursing homes are at full capacity."

Nicole Smith, the director of nursing at Navorina aged care in Deniliquin, said that she has had to rush staff back to work after they have had the virus due to staff shortages. "What's happening at the moment is my staff that have first had COVID are now coming back and are working in the same wing ... they're short of breath but they're on the floor because another lot of staff have got it," she said.

Ms Smith worries about what might happen if she lost a larger number of staff. "If I lost one, two of my chefs, I'd have to close my kitchen ... we're walking along a tightrope".

Like the Forrest Centre, Ms Smith has struggled to get help from the government. She has had to find her own PPE and rely on local clinics and hospitals to get COVID tests for staff and residents.

"There's three things they're supposed to help us with. One is surge workforce, which they can't offer us at the moment ... two is PPE. We've used up all of our backup stock ... and the last one is pathology ... so I had to source my own pathology for residents and staff."

"Here, we've had to rely on the community."

Ms Smith said that her staff might appreciate the new bonus, but she would rather see any money go towards attracting new nurses to work in regional areas.

For Mr Robertson, the bonus ignores the critical issues which blight the sector, and does nothing to attract workers. "It's nice, but it sounds like a quick fix. It doesn't solve any systemic funding problems. We'll take anything for our staff to help them out ... but it's not a long-term solution to anything," he said.

"Look, two lots of four hundred is great and anyone would like to have that, but it's a Band-Aid".

Aged-care peak bodies and the unions have said that the bonus is not enough and have asked for an ongoing COVID-19 payment to be paid on each shift to recognise and incentivise aged-care workers.

"The recent announcement of two pro-rata payments of up to $400 is grossly inadequate and it remains to be seen how this short-term payment will prevent a feared exodus of staff from the frontline," they said.

The peak nursing unions have condemned the government for "for its failure to protect Australia's nursing home residents, and the nurses and care workers".

The crisis has led to basic care not being met including missed meals, bathing and wound care, they said.

They are also calling on the government to provide additional funding to allow providers to find extra staff from agency and community care and, "as a stop-gap measure", to allow family members to enter homes, provide "emotional support" and help with tasks like feeding and diversional therapy.

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