Fastest ageing regions receive ‘nothing’

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

The federal government reportedly failed to allocate a single aged care bed or community care package across the Bundaberg, Burnett, Fraser Coast and Cooloola regions, in last year’s Aged Care round.

“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,” Mr Neville said.

“It is unbelievable that in an area with an ageing population not one aged care bed or community care package was offered,” he added.

According to Mr Truss, aged care providers “no longer have any confidence” that the places they offer will be “commercially viable”.

“So, it seems they have stopped applying for them,” Mr Truss said, adding the government had been “sitting on” the Productivity Commission report since last August.

“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,” he said.

Stating aged care providers want “certainty” about the future, Mr Truss called on the government to “release its response” to the report and detail its plan and initiatives to ensure the aged care sector is “viable”.

“What is the point of an aged care provider applying for a place it knows it does not have the funding to actually deliver?” he asked.

“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,” Mr Neville added.