Opposition to nursing home legislation

June 25, 1997
Issue 

James Vassilopoulos

In an unprecedented move, eight community and church aged care provider groups have issued a joint paper highly critical of the federal government's changes in aged care. The organisations include the Alzheimers Association Australia, the Australian Pensioners and Superannuants Federation and the Salvation Army. The paper states that "people on low incomes will bear the brunt" of the changes.

Under the Coalition government's legislation, people entering nursing homes will have to pay entry fees in the form of deposits as high as $100,000. Only 27% of places will be set aside for residents who cannot afford the huge entry fees.

The government will pay nursing homes a $5 per day subsidy for each resident who is exempt from the entry fee.

The legislation also includes proposals for self-regulation of nursing homes and hostels, and a means-tested weekly fee in addition to the entry fees. There is no provision for residents' rights in the bill.

According to Francis Sullivan, executive director of the Australian Catholic Health Care Association, there are many problems with the bill. The bill as it stands is "discriminatory".

"Access to quality care and accommodation will be denied to an alarming percentage" of aged people, Sullivan told Green Left Weekly. "Access will be based on capacity to pay rather than your clinical needs. This is a backward step."

Sullivan said that a concessional subsidy of $5 per day is a "cruel joke". The 1994 Gregory Report on nursing homes stated that at least $12 per person per day is needed.

There will be a clear financial incentive for nursing homes to take entry fee residents and avoid those on concession. People who can not afford the fees will be squeezed out of the system. There will be fewer nursing home places for poor people.

The quality of accommodation and care which concessional residents receive will deteriorate. Many would have to live in four to a room dormitories. The proposed self-regulation of the industry would mean that there is no independent authority to monitor standards in nursing homes.

Residents with chronic diseases or mental illness will also be pushed out of the system because they would require more staff assistance and be more costly for nursing homes. They are likely to go to the already overburdened charitable nursing homes and hostels.

A report by the Health Employees Superannuation Trust of Australia (HESTA) found that $1.56 billion must be spent on nursing homes till the year 2000 to maintain the buildings and to meet new demand. The government has said that entry fees will raise only about $130 million.

Sullivan told Green Left Weekly that there is a "clear discrepancy on how the government calculates capital refurbishment requirements and what industry groups calculate it as. What is worrying is that the government has not said where the HESTA report goes wrong."

According to the Brotherhood of St Lawrence, the nursing home legislation comes on top of other regressive measures affecting older persons. These include "competitive markets in personal care services" and cuts to public housing.

The 1996 budget involved cuts of $500 million to aged care.

Currently the Brotherhood of St Lawrence has a waiting list of more than seven months for its hostel and nursing home services. It specialises in care for disadvantaged people who require more effort to look after and whom other nursing homes tend not to prefer.

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