Ageing with Dignity

Ageing with Dignity

Victoria  spends under $1bn specifically on aged care services, with the following outcomes:         

    

  • The minimum daily allowance for food and preparation approaches $4-6 per day in some homes, with an average of $6 +, v convicted felons of $8.25 , a community spend of $18-22
  • Well over 50 % of aged care residents have some symptoms of malnutrition
  • Aged care homes in Victoria have been likened to Guantanamo Bay.
  • 18 residential aged care home and 5 home care service providers failed to meet the required standards.

Private aged care homes are profit driven, confinement v care homes, offer super returns to investors, provide a minimum level of service and operate behind a complex, opaque, indecipherable series of contractual terms for residents with nowhere else to go.

The current tax regime is unsupportable – seniors with houses worth $ms , with no assessable income, can claim state pensions and social security through their aged care lifetime , while struggling, working families renting, with taxable income in excess of $20,000, pay for it.

With 1.25m seniors now, which will double in 25 years .

Radical action is required now!

Politicians must:

  1. Recognise the scale of future demographic challenges, plan and finance the required build and support.
  2. Pursue a public partnership v wholly private solution, identifying “poster child” providers whose model is to be replicated elsewhere.
  3. Elevate minimum nutrition, clinical and care resourcing and standards.
  4. Reform the fiscal regime to ensure a fair share of financing v the future burden falling on our children.