Senior Australians forced to abandon their beloved communities due to a lack of rural aged care
- Replies 1
For many, maintaining a connection to your roots as you age is important as it provides a sense of comfort and familiarity throughout life, no matter the stage.
But for some, this wish may be forced to remain just that due to the pretty dire lack of rural aged care facilities.
Pat Powell of Strahan (on Tasmania's west coast) has known no other place as home.
Sadly, she is now only too familiar with the heartbreaking dilemma of needing to leave her community after spending most of her life there.
Pat is moving to be with her daughter 40 kilometres away in Queenstown.
'I don't really want to leave, but I've got no options,' she said. 'I'll miss it very, very much.'
Pat said that she would ideally go into an independent unit where she would still be able to look after herself.
However, the region has only one facility: Lyell House, available at the West Coast District Hospital, which has a 16-bed capacity and one reserved for respite care.
It’s clear, as Pat goes on to say, that this isn’t a suitable match for her and many other elderly who are in need of a more full-time solution.
'I was looking around, but my family were so against… me going into an aged care facility —- I think they thought it was their duty to be looking after me,' she said.
West Coast Mayor Shane Pitt revealed that Lyell House is almost always full, further solidifying the need for at least five more beds and additional support in the area.
‘Aged care is definitely an issue we've got here, we've got no supported living facilities and we've got nothing in between,’ Mr Pitt said.
‘(People) can't get into aged care, so they're moving to other facilities around Tasmania, so then their families move with them.’
Meanwhile, Jeremy Rockliff, Health Minister for Tasmania, said he has requested the federal government to measure up to the former Coalition-led government’s $3 million pledge for the expansion of aged care service beds.
Source: YouTube/ABC News Australia
Sadly, Pat’s West Coast Tasmania dilemma isn’t exactly unheard of in other rural parts of Australia.
More and more Aussies are moving to urban centres, which leads to the shrinking of remote towns and villages.
As these areas shrink, so do their workforce and public funding share, resulting in more difficulty in rolling out social support services like aged care.
Australia’s population of seniors is expected to balloon to 6.7 million by 2041 from an estimated 4.3 million last 2021.
Recent figures place the number of seniors living in rural Australia at 1.6 million.
‘In the next ten years, we will require about 3,500 aged care beds and another 2,000 home care support packages,’ Prof Irene Blackberry of the John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing said.
‘It is difficult for a lot of older people to move to a new environment and have to readjust the way they live.’
‘Particularly when people's … care needs are quite complex, having to relearn a lot of these skills and at the same time managing and juggling a lot of these physical and cognitive declines can be quite challenging.’
It can be said that there’s a clear and present need for more funding for aged care services — something over half of Aussies support — partly to address the problem of dwindling care centres.
But is it really as simple as throwing money at the problem?
Last year, ABC reported on the decrease in regional aged care services and found that there were still persistent issues hounding providers despite the financial support given.
In rural Sydney, for example, one centre that shut down was found to be operating on a $43 million loss despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government funding.
Despite that, a representative insisted that their closure had nothing to do with finances and instead was related to workforce shortages.
‘(The decision) was made because we were under enormous strain and we couldn’t continue to provide the high-quality care that we wanted to,’ she said.
Aged care economist Grant Corderoy revealed that many other rural aged care services face similar problems.
‘About 78 per cent are actually running at an operating loss, and 54 per cent are running at a cash loss,’ he said.
‘So there (is) a significant amount… we’d call under financial pressure.’
‘If there’s no change in the funding arrangements, there’ll be an exponential increase (of shuttered aged care centres).’
In another interview, Corduroy explained that the government’s funding of aged care services doesn’t adequately cover ‘additional operational and financial burden, and the challenge of getting and retaining staff’.
But what kind of changes should be made in the funding scheme for rural aged care services?
‘At the moment, there are two real problems with aged care funding,’ pointed out Health Economist Stephen Duckett.
‘A total lack of transparency, and secondly, a total lack of regulation and accountability.’
‘It’s hard to trace where (public funding) goes.’
Whatever the case may be, the fact remains that many others like Pat in Tasmania remain in an awkward position with aged care services either absent or struggling to stay afloat in the country’s remote areas.
And that’s not even scratching the surface of other problems affecting Aussie seniors, which include dismal food standards and neglect and abuse in aged care centres, workforce shortages, and the lack of policies outside of care and support services.
Hopefully, the solutions to these problems come sooner, rather than later.
Source: YouTube/ABC News Australia
So, what are your thoughts on this? If you live in a rural area, have you experienced the same dilemma as Pat?
What changes do you think should be done to improve services for seniors in rural Australia?
Tell us your thoughts below!
But for some, this wish may be forced to remain just that due to the pretty dire lack of rural aged care facilities.
Pat Powell of Strahan (on Tasmania's west coast) has known no other place as home.
Sadly, she is now only too familiar with the heartbreaking dilemma of needing to leave her community after spending most of her life there.
Pat is moving to be with her daughter 40 kilometres away in Queenstown.
'I don't really want to leave, but I've got no options,' she said. 'I'll miss it very, very much.'
Pat said that she would ideally go into an independent unit where she would still be able to look after herself.
Many senior Aussies living in the countryside are finding that their aged care options are limited. Image Credit: Unsplash
However, the region has only one facility: Lyell House, available at the West Coast District Hospital, which has a 16-bed capacity and one reserved for respite care.
It’s clear, as Pat goes on to say, that this isn’t a suitable match for her and many other elderly who are in need of a more full-time solution.
'I was looking around, but my family were so against… me going into an aged care facility —- I think they thought it was their duty to be looking after me,' she said.
West Coast Mayor Shane Pitt revealed that Lyell House is almost always full, further solidifying the need for at least five more beds and additional support in the area.
‘Aged care is definitely an issue we've got here, we've got no supported living facilities and we've got nothing in between,’ Mr Pitt said.
‘(People) can't get into aged care, so they're moving to other facilities around Tasmania, so then their families move with them.’
Meanwhile, Jeremy Rockliff, Health Minister for Tasmania, said he has requested the federal government to measure up to the former Coalition-led government’s $3 million pledge for the expansion of aged care service beds.
Source: YouTube/ABC News Australia
Sadly, Pat’s West Coast Tasmania dilemma isn’t exactly unheard of in other rural parts of Australia.
More and more Aussies are moving to urban centres, which leads to the shrinking of remote towns and villages.
As these areas shrink, so do their workforce and public funding share, resulting in more difficulty in rolling out social support services like aged care.
Australia’s population of seniors is expected to balloon to 6.7 million by 2041 from an estimated 4.3 million last 2021.
Recent figures place the number of seniors living in rural Australia at 1.6 million.
‘In the next ten years, we will require about 3,500 aged care beds and another 2,000 home care support packages,’ Prof Irene Blackberry of the John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing said.
‘It is difficult for a lot of older people to move to a new environment and have to readjust the way they live.’
‘Particularly when people's … care needs are quite complex, having to relearn a lot of these skills and at the same time managing and juggling a lot of these physical and cognitive declines can be quite challenging.’
It can be said that there’s a clear and present need for more funding for aged care services — something over half of Aussies support — partly to address the problem of dwindling care centres.
But is it really as simple as throwing money at the problem?
Last year, ABC reported on the decrease in regional aged care services and found that there were still persistent issues hounding providers despite the financial support given.
In rural Sydney, for example, one centre that shut down was found to be operating on a $43 million loss despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government funding.
Despite that, a representative insisted that their closure had nothing to do with finances and instead was related to workforce shortages.
‘(The decision) was made because we were under enormous strain and we couldn’t continue to provide the high-quality care that we wanted to,’ she said.
The government offers subsidised aged care facilities across the country, but there are concerns this alone isn’t enough to address the looming problem of closures. Image Credit: Unsplash
Aged care economist Grant Corderoy revealed that many other rural aged care services face similar problems.
‘About 78 per cent are actually running at an operating loss, and 54 per cent are running at a cash loss,’ he said.
‘So there (is) a significant amount… we’d call under financial pressure.’
‘If there’s no change in the funding arrangements, there’ll be an exponential increase (of shuttered aged care centres).’
In another interview, Corduroy explained that the government’s funding of aged care services doesn’t adequately cover ‘additional operational and financial burden, and the challenge of getting and retaining staff’.
‘At the moment, there are two real problems with aged care funding,’ pointed out Health Economist Stephen Duckett.
‘A total lack of transparency, and secondly, a total lack of regulation and accountability.’
‘It’s hard to trace where (public funding) goes.’
And that’s not even scratching the surface of other problems affecting Aussie seniors, which include dismal food standards and neglect and abuse in aged care centres, workforce shortages, and the lack of policies outside of care and support services.
Hopefully, the solutions to these problems come sooner, rather than later.
Source: YouTube/ABC News Australia
So, what are your thoughts on this? If you live in a rural area, have you experienced the same dilemma as Pat?
What changes do you think should be done to improve services for seniors in rural Australia?
Tell us your thoughts below!
.png){kind=icon}
