[Thursday, 18 October 2007]
Evidently Australia is awash with money – 34 billion dollars worth of tax cuts coming our way soon. Then there is all the money spent on tax-payer-funded political advertising – more billions.
Yet, with all this bounty, we still cannot afford to give many of our citizens the end-of-life care that they should have. Week after week we hear the stories of aged-care staff who are so stretched that they are unable to provide quality care for their residents. Or we hear from distressed family members who recount how the system is failing their loved ones.
Current government policy is to limit investment in public aged care and to shift money over to the private sector. Clearly corporations are seeing aged care as a cash cow (otherwise they surely would not be in there). The ‘looming aged care crisis’ is getting plenty of mentions and there is much talk of the need for introducing bonds for those in high-care facilities. And all the time the bonds for residency in low-care homes are getting higher and higher.
On the other hand, financial advisers are starting to warn people that all those savings currently going into superannuation funds, may end up in an aged-care bond as there is no upper limit on the size of the bond. At this time, the only restriction is that residents must be left with $33,500.
What a mess it all is. Who to believe? One thing is for sure - there is a great need for more accountability as to just where the aged-care dollar is being spent.
The Council on the Ageing has come up with a five point plan featuring preventative health care and policies to keep people at home as long as possible. No-one can argue with either of those. But in the end, some people cannot remain at home. They require full-time nursing care – more than can be provided at home. And so we need sustainable funding arrangements that will see humane, quality aged care prevail; ones that that don’t end up with staff and residents being squeezed to the limit in order for profits to be made out of the ill and dying.
Neither of the major parties has come up with any answers to the aged-care funding dilemma. Shame on them both. One day this current crop of politicians and bureaucrats will become old too. And who will speak for them then?
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With election day coming up soon in Australia, it is a shame that we have not heard much about actions from both major parties.
The above article echos the concern of all of us. Please visit the website Aged Care Crisis for more information and discussions on this issue.
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