Failed system must change
OIT IS SIMPLY UNACCEPTABLE THAT BUDGET IMPERATIVES AND PROFITS ARE
BEING PRIORITISED BY AGED CARE PROVIDERS OVER THE WELFARE OF THE ELDERLY.
N our front page today we celebrate the courage of the Tasmanians who have spoken out about failings in our state’s aged care facilities during this week’s royal commission hearings in Hobart. Through their courage we have all learned that this is a system that is too often failing our most vulnerable.
The commission packed up yesterday to move on to its next destination, where similar stories will no doubt be shared. But it is vital that the stories shared so bravely by Tasmanians this week will not just be consigned to a file to gather dust, or to page 298 of the royal commission’s final report.
In speaking out, they expect something to change. It must. And as a community we have a shared obligation to honour their bravery by ensuring it does.
It is simply unacceptable that budget imperatives and profits are being prioritised over the welfare of the elderly. We need action now so the stories of humiliation, degradation and neglect heard this week will not be repeated. We need commitments from the operators that they have learned the lessons of the past. We need a commitment from the government and from federal regulators that they will provide more effective oversight. And we need a process whereby similar stories can be shared openly and without fear — instead of just being swept under the rug.
As we said in this column on Thursday, the residents of aged care homes are not animals. They are not annoyances. And so they should never be treated as such. They are people who deserve to be cared for. The sector, after all, is called “aged care”. That’s literally, by definition, the job.
But we should all have hope that this royal commission will lead to change. Its interim report last month described the “system designed to care for older Australians” as “woefully inadequate”. The report warned: “Many people receiving aged-care services have their basic human rights denied. Their dignity is not respected and their identity is ignored. It most certainly is not a full life. It is a shocking tale of neglect. The neglect that we have found in this royal commission to date is far from the best that can be done. Rather, it is a sad and shocking system that diminishes Australia as a nation.”
The commission plans to spend the next year on its work. It has promised its final report will outline a comprehensive reform package. Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck — of course, a Tasmanian senator — has already expressed his shock at what the commission has been uncovering. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has promised to do more, and to spend more.
That’s all fine. But the commission’s interim report also points out that this is not just a matter for governments, regulators, aged care providers and staff. It calls us all out as having the wrong attitude towards older Australians, saying that as a nation we have somehow “drifted into an ageist mindset that undervalues older people and limits their possibilities” — where we see older people as “a burden, encumbrance (and) obligation”. It’s time that changed. And that change will only come if all of us agree to do our part. After all, these people are us.