Aged Care Crisis Hits Region No Beds, No Packages Under Latest Round

Uncertainty in the aged care sector will reach crisis point and will be felt for years to come, the Federal Member for Wide Bay, Warren Truss, and the Federal Member for Hinkler, Paul Neville warned today.

The Gillard Labor Government has failed to allocate a single aged care bed or community care package across the Bundaberg, Burnett, Fraser Coast and Cooloola regions, in the 2011 Aged Care round.

“Aged care providers no longer have any confidence that the places they offer will be commercially viable, so it seems that they have stopped applying for them,” Warren Truss said today.

“The Government has been sitting on a Productivity Commission report since August, which made 58 recommendations on ways to improve the sector but the report has been greeted with silence from the Gillard Labor Government.

“Aged care providers want certainty about the future.  The Government must release its response to the report and detail its plan and initiatives to ensure the aged care sector is viable and that future needs can be met.”  

There were 10,493 residential aged care beds available nationwide this year but the Government received applications for 7,933.

“Until the Government matches the places it offers with sustainable levels of funding, aged care providers will be reluctant to apply for them or take them up,” Warren Truss said.  

“What is the point of an aged care provider applying for a place it knows it does not have the funding to actually deliver?  Thousands of previously allocated beds have never been built.”

The region’s Federal Members are demanding action from Government to ensure the needs of the ageing capital of the nation are addressed.

“There is a lag between the time that the places area offered, when they are applied for, when they are approved, and when they are constructed or put in place.  Unless the sector’s concerns are addressed right now, the problems will be felt for years to come,” Warren Truss said.

“It is unbelievable that in an area with an ageing population that not one aged care bed or community care package was offered,” Member for Hinkler Paul Neville said.

“My queries to the Aged Care Minister have gone unanswered so far, despite the fact that the region is already missing 429 aged care beds already.  Queensland has the poorest ratio of beds to people aged 70 and over,” Paul Neville said.

“In the 2011 Round, up to 180 aged care beds were up for grabs in the Wide Bay region – and not a single one was allocated.

“By contrast, there were more than 24,000 applications to the Government for community care (in home packages) but only 1,698 were offered.  No new community care packages were offered anywhere in Queensland.

“This region has the highest age profile in the nation, and the Hinkler electorate has the highest veteran population in the nation. It is incomprehensible that we have received nothing in the latest Round.

“My office constantly receives calls from anxious families who are worried about securing residential aged care for their elderly and frail relatives.  The backlog in getting aged care beds in place is hurting frail and aged people in our region, as well as their families, communities and local economies.

“In short, families are the ones bearing the brunt of a broken system.

“The elderly deserve to have access to the care they need. Families and carers do as much as they can to help the elderly and frail to stay in their homes for as long as possible, but it is not fair to expect them to act as substitutes for full residential care,” Paul Neville said.

“The 2011 Round did deliver a welcome $1 million capital grant to the Ny-Ku Byun service in Cherbourg, which will help to upgrade aged care facilities in the community,” Warren Truss said.

A joint media release from Warren Truss and Paul Neville
16/01/2012
Aged Care Crisis Hits Region No Beds, No Packages Under Latest Round

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Publish Date: 16 Jan 12

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