Broadbent fights for aged care

by Keith Anderson Member for McMillan Russell Broadbent said he’s “ready to go to war” – against his own Federal government and previous ones.

“The issue is the number of aged care beds allocated to community owned not-for-profit providers,” he said.

Mr Broadbent claims governments have favoured large providers in the “for profit” sectors with the allocations of bed numbers.

Speaking in parliament last Wednesday he highlighted the case of Hillview Aged Care at Bunyip that is “run by locals for locals” and with a committee that has put its hand up for a “fair share of the national wealth”.

There is nothing worse for a family than being told there is no aged care bed available locally, the nearest being many kilometres away and foreign to their loved one’s needs, Mr Broadbent told parliament.

He later told The Gazette that other community not-for profit aged care facilities in McMillan, including Tarago Views at Neerim South, Lyrebird Village in Drouin and Warragul’s Fairview Homes, faced similar issues. It is not good enough, he said. Mr Broadbent described people that gave their time voluntarily to serve on boards of management of small not-for-profit aged care facilities as “local aged care heroes”.

“I will continue to voice these concerns in this place (parliament) until they receive equal treatment to those city based forprofit providers”.

The small and not-for-profit providers have been neglected by successive governments in provision of capital and a fair share of the aged care bed allocation, he stated.