In a National Press Club address on Tuesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that aged care workers would receive up to $800 spread over two payments as part of a federal government wave of support for the struggling sector.

More than 400 aged care residents have contracted COVID this month alone and more than half of aged care facilities are managing active outbreaks.

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"We believe that will help manage significant demands on the workers themselves as well as the facilities," Mr Morrison said.

"The aged care workforce strategy will further address our plans to support the aged care workforce, our plans will be costly and be funded."

However, unions and aged care employees say the move is too little too late, arguing that in practice, nothing has changed since the Royal Commission into Aged Care report was released in March last year.

"Since the report came out, it's absolutely the same," one Bendigo aged care worker told The Advertiser.

"They say that we are getting more staff or they are going to implement something new but nothing ever changes."

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Local aged care workers from multiple facilities told The Bendigo Advertiser they had to pay for their own rapid antigen tests on a number of occasions.

One worker said testing was not mandatory and workers had been asked to test themselves over the weekend.

"Staff were not required to do a rapid antigen tests until this past weekend," they said.

"Staff didn't previously have any access to rapid tests."

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation conducted a survey of over 770 health and aged care workers with preliminary findings showing that one in five participants reported needing to find their own RAT's, and 27 percent reported a 'poor' or 'very poor' testing experience.

ANMF Federal Assistant Secretary Lori-Anne, Sharp said chronic understaffing exacerbated by COVID meant staff were unable to provide residents with necessary care.

"Many of our nurses and carers are telling us that they're still being forced to source and pay for their own RATs due to ongoing supply issues," she said.

"This is putting further emotional and financial strain on the aged care workers who are already exhausted and burnt out."

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Unions have backed the frontline workers, arguing the government's most recent support payments are too little too late for the scrambling sector.

National president of the Health Services Union Gerard Hayes said the payment was a pre-election political strategy rather than a serious plan to fix the chronic underpayment of aged care workers.

"Mr Morrison's latest ploy is cheap and nasty...we're into our third year of this pandemic and an exhausted aged care workforce is barely holding on," he said.

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers told the ABC the payments were insufficient to meet the sector's needs.

"These workers deserve much better than being treated as the political equivalent of panic buying," he said.

"They deserve a sustainable solution."

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