Aged care providers call for more funding

A number of West and South Gippsland aged care services pushed the case for more beds to be allocated to country and regional not-for-profit providers when they met Federal Minister for Aged Care Ken Wyatt last Thursday.

The meeting at Hillview aged care at Bunyip was also attended by representatives of Lyrebird Village at Drouin, Neerim South’s Tarago Views, Carinya aged care at Korumburra, Pakenham aged care and Woorayl Lodge at Leongatha.

Member for McMillan Russell Broadbent, organiser of the round table discussion, raised the issue of the country not-for-profit sector in parliament in late March, later telling The Gazette (March 28) that it was a matter on which he was “ready to go to war” with his own (Liberal/National) government and previous ones.

Speaking after the meeting Mr Wyatt said the providers were frustrated at not seeing growth in the services they currently provide.

The real issue is access to the quality of services they see in capital cities, he said.

While non-committal the Minister acknowledged the need for “cogent thinking” about the need for extra (beds) and raised the importance of aged care as a key employment hub and economic contributor to country towns.

In his speech to parliament Mr Broadbent claimed governments had favoured large “for profit” sectors with the allocations of bed numbers commenting that there was nothing worse for a family than to be told there is no aged care bed available locally.

Last Thursday he stressed the difference between the country and the city.

“In the cities if an aged person can’t get a bed in their closest facility they are likely to get one a short distance away”.

For country people, if a local bed isn’t available, they may have to go somewhere 60-70 kilometres away from family and friends, Mr Broadbent claimed.

He had described volunteer members of board of management of small not-for-profit facilities as “local aged care heroes” and he would continue to voice their concerns until they got equal treatment to city based “for profit” providers.