Libs pledge 3000 extra aged-care beds to curb crisis
By STEPHANIE PEATLING AND KIRSTY NEEDHAM DARWIN
August 1, 2010
A COALITION government would free 3000 aged-care beds to ease the nursing home-care crisis.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will announce a plan today to convert up to 3000 already allocated and funded high-care residential aged-care bed licences into operational places.
"State hospitals in crisis, especially in NSW and Queensland, are putting even more pressure on an aged-care system that doesn't get the support it deserves from Labor,'' Mr Abbott said.
Mr Abbott said the program would begin immediately if he was elected, with funding of $90 million for incentive payments to nursing home operators. Providers would receive $30,000 for each bed in an attempt to push them to make available allocated places. Ongoing costs would be $355 million over four years.
In a further bid for the grey vote, Mr Abbott said he would spend $14 million on pets as therapies programs to help community organisations train dogs and cats to go into nursing homes.
Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot called on Mr Abbott to back a national aged-care system and guarantee that existing funding levels would not be cut.
"Older Australians who rely on these services and the nurses and carers that deliver these services deserve certainty the Commonwealth government will continue to take full funding responsibility," she said. "Given Tony Abbott's record, they also deserve certainty that current funding levels will not be cut."
Mr Abbott's ''extremist'' past rhetoric will be highlighted in an aggressive campaign by Labor, which will use its new underdog status to warn voters to take a closer look at the man who could be prime minister.
Labor will dredge up dozens of comments by Mr Abbott on issues such as industrial relations, abortion, teenage sex, marriage and climate change. The government's dossier includes Mr Abbott's hardline attitudes to women and abortion, including a 2006 statement that there was ''a bizarre double standard in this country where someone who kills a pregnant woman's baby is guilty of murder but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice''.
Mr Abbott campaigned yesterday in the marginal Labor-held seat of Solomon, around Darwin, including an inspection of HMAS Maitland, which patrols for illegal entries and intercepts asylum seekers.
Mr Abbott said if elected he would free land owned by Defence for housing as well as $77.5 million to improve medical and dental services for serving Defence personnel.
SOURCE: The SMH
( We know it's election time, when politicians make promises about more funding for Aged Care. It seems to be the same pattern, whether it's in Europe, USA, Australia etc.
May be we should be less cynical; but hold politicians to their pre-election promises. I believe that any government who ignore the ''grey voters" or senior issues should not be re-elected. It is short-sighted of many politicians to either cut back fundings for Aged Care; or failed to plan for an aging population needs.
......................... Andrew)
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