Yesterday\u2019s hearing of the Senate inquiry into Labor\u2019s aged care \u2018Support at Home\u2019 program has heard more disturbing testimony of how the government is failing older people, denying them their right to care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Support at Home is premised on the ideal of \u2018rights based care.\u2019 But, as pointed out in multiple submissions, the way care is rationed calls these \u2018rights\u2019 into question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRights that exist in legislation but not in practice are not rights at all.\u201d – Saviour Buhagair, Uniting NSW.ACT<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alternate to the government\u2019s approach would be a \u2018right to care.\u2019 Rather than just guaranteeing rights once care has commenced, have a proactive right to receive essential aged care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Labor continues to forge ahead with steep copayments, and the inquiry heard sharp criticism of the means testing for copayments from Professor David Cullen, former Chief Economist of the NDIA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Support at Home means test is just economically illiterate.\u201d – Professor David Cullen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Older people on the same income are paying significantly more or less depending on how much support they\u2019re getting, which forces those with the highest needs into residential care. Professor Cullen calls this method of means testing a \u2018stupid idea.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n The inquiry also heard more shocking evidence about the total inadequacy of support for older people with Motor Neurone Disease. The highest level of funding secures just two hours per day of care. Labor announced reforms to prioritise the delivery of care for those with MND, but hasn\u2019t acted on the funding itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGetting faster access to inadequate funding doesn’t solve the problem.\u201d – Clare Sullivan, MND Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse, Labor\u2019s broken aged care assessment tool is routinely underassessing those with MND. The highest level care, level 8, is still inadequate, but the assessment tool is often assigning recipients level 4 packages. This is approximately ten times less funding than they would receive on the NDIS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Integrated Assessment Tool is not working for people with MND. Our analysis shows no correlation between the packages that are allocated and their disease progression, their circumstance, their care needs. It just doesn’t marry up the assessments that people are getting to what we know they would need. And there’s no relativity in even the spread amongst them. It doesn\u2019t make any sense and it doesn\u2019t reflect what people need.\u201d – Clare Sullivan, MND Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Senate passed a Greens motion<\/u><\/a> last month calling on the Integrated Assessment Tool to be abolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Greens Older People Spokesperson:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe evidence proving that Labor\u2019s aged care reforms are harming older Australians continues to pile up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSupport at Home is rights-based in name only, and it\u2019s past time Labor guaranteed a genuine right to care and an end to rationing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCopayments are denying care to the most vulnerable, and forcing them into the residential system or hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Integrated Assessment Tool is broken and beyond fixing \u2013 the government needs to listen to the Senate and scrap it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor and the Minister are clearly out of their depth on aged care, and their ignorance and recklessness are hurting older people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday\u2019s hearing of the Senate inquiry into Labor\u2019s aged care \u2018Support at Home\u2019 program has heard more disturbing testimony of how the government is failing older people, denying them their right to care. Support at Home is premised on the ideal of \u2018rights based care.\u2019 But, as pointed out in multiple submissions, the way care … Continue reading “Aged care Senate inquiry hears Labor is denying rights to older people”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40954,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40953\/revisions\/40954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}