Aged health after COVID

The failure to consider the needs of older people is not new, and it is not confined to a single country or government.

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is currently examining the UK’s response to the pandemic, seeking to learn lessons for the future.

The Inquiry’s second report found a failure to adequately protect older people and other vulnerable groups, particularly in the slow response to the introduction of lockdowns in 2020.

In Australia, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety found that factors driving poor-quality treatment in aged care included ageism and attitudes and assumptions about older people.

In November 2025, the Australian Human Rights Commission issued a report which found that ageism is widespread in health care, seriously jeopardising older people’s access to critical medical care.

This is particularly concerning given Australia’s ageing population.

Older Australians – those aged 65 and over – have increased from 2.1 million (12 per cent of the total population) in 1995 to an estimated 4.2 million in 2020, about 16 per cent of the population.

By 2066, it is projected that older people will make up 21-23 per cent of the total population.

So, have we learned from the pandemic? Or does our ageism and ageing population call for greater human rights action?

An indispensable right

The right to health is a fundamental human right.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – which Australia is a party to – recognises “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.

Further, it requires participating nations to take steps for the “creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness.”

While the right to health might be fundamental, and applies across the life course, in practice, older people often experience limited access to health care and reduced quality of health into older age.

COVID and older people

Health challenges for older people were particularly acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, when health care systems were put under significant pressure.

During the widespread rationing of health care that ensued, older people were often denied access to medical treatment on the basis of age.

In Sweden, several structural shortcomings in the country’s eldercare system resulted in older persons not receiving health care on equal terms.

Many older persons in residential care were not individually assessed by physicians and, in some cases, were denied access to hospital care despite medical needs, contributing to preventable suffering and avoidable deaths.

In Italy, where hospitals were especially overwhelmed, treatment decisions were frequently based on age and age cut-offs.

In Australia, even with strict lockdowns and closed national borders, aged care residents with COVID-19 were still less likely to be hospitalised than the general population, despite the shortcomings of aged care facilities in coping with infections.

This failure to send aged care residents to hospitals may help explain the alarming COVID-19 death and transmission rates in aged care in Australia.

In 2020, of 904 deaths from COVID-19 in Australia at the time, 682 had been in aged care. This aged care death rate – at 75 per cent of all deaths – was one of the highest in the world.

The aged care death rate in Australia during COVID was one of the highest in the world. 

In contrast, a 2020 study of 12 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries showed the COVID-19 death rate for those in long-term care averaged 47.3 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths.

Ageism in health care

Even in non-emergency settings, older people may be denied or limited in their access to health care and in attaining the highest standard of health.

In part, this may reflect governments’ fears (which researchers have disputed) about the growing cost of health care in an ageing population.

It may also reflect ingrained ageism in society as a whole.

With an ageing population, more of us will hopefully have the opportunity to grow old – that’s the good news.

But with pervasive ageism and age discrimination globally, there remains a fundamental question for governments and policy makers – how can the right to health be best upheld across the entire life course?

Tackling ageist attitudes, particularly in health care, is an important place to start.

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has recommended targeted training and education for health professionals to address age bias, as well as co-design of age-inclusive care models with older adults.

Key, too, is better embedding of human rights and the right to health in Australian law and practice. At present, only Queensland includes the right to health services in its human rights act.

It’s time for Australia to protect equality rights and health across the life course. 

Australia is the only common law country internationally that does not have a federal human rights act. Equality rights – including protections from age discrimination – can and should be framed as human rights.

Adopting a federal human rights statute in Australia has been recommended by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights’ Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework, as well as the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Free & Equal position paper.

It is time for Australia to pass a federal human rights act to better protect equality rights and health across the entire life course.

And with an ageing population, there is no time like the present.

This article was written by Professor Alysia Blackham of the University of Melbourne, and Professor Titti Mattsson of Lund University. It was published by Pursuit.