THEY DESERVE MUCH BETTER

AUSTRALIA’S $20 billion-a-year residential aged care industry is supposedly booming on the back of the baby boomer wave.

Fifteen per cent of the population is aged 65 years or older and by 2037 that will be 20 per cent, or about 6.5 million people.

Revenue to aged care homes is increasing by more than 5 per cent annually, providers are forecast to make $1.7 billion this financial year and taxpayers will tip in $22 billion a year by 2021.

In 2015-16, aged care villages received on average $5900 for every resident, made up of lucrative bed bonds and direct debits of up to 80 per cent of each person’s pension.

The industry is a gold mine. Right? Wrong, on the surface at least.

A report by the Aged Care Financing Authority this year revealed that 44 per cent of residential care providers were in the red. That was up 12 per cent on the year before. It was worse in regional, rural and remote areas, where more than 67 per cent of providers operate at a loss.

The situation at the Earle Haven aged care village, which has left 70 vulnerable retirees homeless, has provided a first-hand glimpse into the sector’s plight.

Across the other side of the country in Perth, luxury aged care group Berrington Care Group went into voluntary administration this month. In March, industry giant BUPA reached a $157 million settlement with the tax department over claims it tried to artificially lower its profits.

Most Australians would be stunned by the amount of money generated, and allegedly wasted. It is not going to frontline staff either, with Earle Haven rostering just one registered nurse to oversee 68 in-need residents. The nurses union says this is common.

The Royal Commission’s interim report into Aged Care Quality and Safety, expected this year, cannot come quick enough.

The entire industry needs to be consistently scrutinised to ensure more innocent, hard-working pensioners and their families are not put through the pain like they have on the Gold Coast in the past week.