Support from the Gillard Government’s Zero Real Interest Loans initiative has helped deliver more aged care services in Deloraine.
The Government’s Zero Real Interest Loans initiative provides low-cost finance to aged care providers to support the construction or expansion of aged care facilities in areas of need.
Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot toured the $1.3 million extension at Kanangra Hostel that is providing nine new beds supported by a $100,000 Zero Real Interest Loan. Kanangra Hostel can now provide care for 48 residents.
Minister Elliot said: “The Gillard Government is supporting the development of new aged care places through capital grants and low-cost finance.
“We believe older Australians deserve better. Better health services and better aged care services and that is why we are getting on with the job of reforming our health, hospitals and aged care system.
“In the last Budget, the Government has extended the Zero Real Interest Loans initiative to support the development of up to 2,500 new aged care places.
“A strong economy and decisive action by the Government during the global financial crisis has enabled these important investments to be made, providing a fairer share and more support for older Australians and their families,” Minister Elliot said.
Tasmanian aged care providers have already been offered more than $16 million in Zero Real Interest Loans to support 130 new aged care places. The initiative has resulted in 15 new places delivering services with a further 79 places in the construction and planning phases.
Minister Elliot said: “Providing low-cost finance is a practical and commonsense way we can help aged care services expand. It is great to see Tasmanian aged care providers taking full advantage of this assistance from the Government.
“In addition to the construction jobs, the facility provides an ongoing boost to the local economy, creating more jobs in the aged care sector,” Minister Elliot said.
The Gillard Government is reforming aged care. We are taking full funding and policy responsibility to build a nationally consistent system. This national system will be supported by one-stop shops for better access to services, more highly qualified staff, more aged care places, better access to GP and primary care and stronger protections for older Australians receiving care.
Souce: Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing
Showing posts with label aged. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aged. Show all posts
20100704
Aged care residents need an apology too
Witnessing an elderly woman with terror in her eyes, shouting incoherently as she struggled in a restraint chair in the corridor of an aged care facility while staff ignored her and attended to paperwork for the facility’s accreditation has led a Charles Sturt University (CSU) nursing academic to question the meaning of the Rudd government’s coming apology to ‘The Forgotten Australians’ who were detained in government welfare institutions in bygone decades.
Dr Maree Bernoth, a lecturer at the CSU School of Nursing and Midwifery at Wagga Wagga, says that unless there is urgent reform to the delivery of residential aged care, future governments will also end up apologising to the victims of current institutional abuse and neglect.
“The neglected group of Australians who grew up in brutal and loveless institutions deserve the apology from Mr Rudd, to be announced shortly, and I sincerely hope that it assists with their recovery from the traumas of their past,” Dr Bernoth said.
“But the meaning of the apology must come into question, however, as this apology implies that we have learnt from the past and will not perpetrate these conditions on Australian citizens again.
“There is still a group of Australians, who are older and/or have a disability in many residential aged care facilities, who live in environments in which physical and emotional abuse and, sometimes, sexual abuse, occurs.”
Dr Bernoth’s PhD research into what it means to be safe in aged care was presented at the Emerging Health Policy Research Conference at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy in August this year.
“We do not know who is a victim, or in which residential aged care facility, but we do know that abuse and neglect occurs. This is substantiated in my research. Furthermore, the way complaints about this are handled was illustrated on ABC television’s 4 Corners program, The End of the Line, which was shown on Monday 1 June this year,” she said.
She says that the auditing processes must focus on and involve actually observing the residents and care workers, and the emphasis on diverting the accreditation process to ‘folders and paperwork’ must be reduced.
“My research indicates that while the paperwork and the systems are in place, the residents’ incontinence pads remain unchanged for nearly 24 hours; cries for help are ignored as ‘attention seeking behaviour’; the elderly lady is screaming and being held down by a number of staff while having a urinary catheter inserted; and the assistants in nursing bully each other and the residents because of the pressures of time and task and the absence of skilled mentors,” Dr Bernoth said.
“But the elderly and disabled people living in nursing homes will not demand an apology, they will not speak out or cause a fuss, and they are not a group the litigation lawyers are concerned about. Instead, they continue to die in pain and with no dignity.
“When Mr Rudd delivers the apology, he needs to do so with the knowledge that the conditions that traumatised The Forgotten Australians continue to have a large impact on many of our most vulnerable citizens, the frail aged and the disabled.”
Dr Maree Bernoth, a lecturer at the CSU School of Nursing and Midwifery at Wagga Wagga, says that unless there is urgent reform to the delivery of residential aged care, future governments will also end up apologising to the victims of current institutional abuse and neglect.
“The neglected group of Australians who grew up in brutal and loveless institutions deserve the apology from Mr Rudd, to be announced shortly, and I sincerely hope that it assists with their recovery from the traumas of their past,” Dr Bernoth said.
“But the meaning of the apology must come into question, however, as this apology implies that we have learnt from the past and will not perpetrate these conditions on Australian citizens again.
“There is still a group of Australians, who are older and/or have a disability in many residential aged care facilities, who live in environments in which physical and emotional abuse and, sometimes, sexual abuse, occurs.”
Dr Bernoth’s PhD research into what it means to be safe in aged care was presented at the Emerging Health Policy Research Conference at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy in August this year.
“We do not know who is a victim, or in which residential aged care facility, but we do know that abuse and neglect occurs. This is substantiated in my research. Furthermore, the way complaints about this are handled was illustrated on ABC television’s 4 Corners program, The End of the Line, which was shown on Monday 1 June this year,” she said.
She says that the auditing processes must focus on and involve actually observing the residents and care workers, and the emphasis on diverting the accreditation process to ‘folders and paperwork’ must be reduced.
“My research indicates that while the paperwork and the systems are in place, the residents’ incontinence pads remain unchanged for nearly 24 hours; cries for help are ignored as ‘attention seeking behaviour’; the elderly lady is screaming and being held down by a number of staff while having a urinary catheter inserted; and the assistants in nursing bully each other and the residents because of the pressures of time and task and the absence of skilled mentors,” Dr Bernoth said.
“But the elderly and disabled people living in nursing homes will not demand an apology, they will not speak out or cause a fuss, and they are not a group the litigation lawyers are concerned about. Instead, they continue to die in pain and with no dignity.
“When Mr Rudd delivers the apology, he needs to do so with the knowledge that the conditions that traumatised The Forgotten Australians continue to have a large impact on many of our most vulnerable citizens, the frail aged and the disabled.”
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