Movement gives older Aussies a voice in aged care reform.
Mar 1, 2021 7:41:06 GMT 7
latindancer and JJJ88 like this
Post by bear on Mar 1, 2021 7:41:06 GMT 7
The movement that gives older Australians a voice in aged care reform
Peter Norden’s first experience of navigating the byzantine aged care system was after he had an operation last year.
The 71-year-old founder of Jesuit Social Services, prison reform advocate and honorary fellow at Deakin University is no intellectual slouch, but he says the process of organising support in his home was confusing and bureaucratic.
“I’ve been working at a fairly high level – teaching and writing and research – and I couldn’t understand what it was all about,” Dr Norden says.
“When I started trying to change providers, there were so many barriers and hoops to jump through that you almost felt it was a waste of time; you make so many damn phone calls. I found it bureaucratic, complex and difficult to feel any sense of control or that I was a partner in this.”
Dr Norden is a member of a new lobby group – Aged Care Reform Now – formed to give older Australians and their families a voice in the movement to reform aged care in Australia.
The group wants to ensure the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety – to be publicly released this week – are translated into action.
“It seems to me it’s not just a shortage of money, it’s a system that needs to be reformed,” Dr Norden says.
“People who are not at a super-advanced stage like myself, whose brains still mostly operate OK, want to be able to use their own judgment to make choices, and to reallocate services as their needs change, not to be on a waiting list for a year or two.”
The royal commission was announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018 after incidents of abuse and neglect – including the Oakden nursing home scandal in Adelaide – fuelled claims the aged care sector was in crisis.
Aged Care Reform Now co-founder Dr Sarah Russell said there had been almost 20 inquiries into the aged care sector over the past two decades but, despite some “fantastic recommendations”, there had been little change.
“We have started this movement because we are expecting some really important recommendations to come out of the royal commission and we are going to put pressure on MPs around the country to to make this an election issue,” she said.
“This is a chance of a lifetime to change this sector. Otherwise we are going to keep hearing about the negligence, keep hearing about abuse, keep hearing about heartbreaking stories and they have to stop.”
Dr Russell, a public health researcher, became involved in aged care advocacy after her parents moved into an aged care home in 2010.
“People were making complaints about lots of different things at the home but they were all secret,” Dr Russell said.
”So if somebody put in a complaint to the complaints commissioner about staffing levels, or the food or the care that their parent was getting no one knew, because these are all secrets. And it seemed to me quite early on, if we could actually consider complaints as feedback they can be used for quality improvement.“
Aged Care Reform Now is pushing for a far more transparent aged care system, with public reports of complaints and how they are managed, mandatory reporting of elder abuse, public access to the regulator’s spot check reports and financial transparency.
It wants a new aged care act that focuses on human rights, increased staffing levels and skills mix and – significantly – older people and their families to be involved in the design of aged care services.
“I think we infantilise older people who are recipients of home care packages and residents in aged care homes and that needs to stop,” Dr Russell said. “These are people who have opinions and experiences and views of the services that they receive.”
The group was born out of a Facebook page, where older people and their families expressed their distress at policies such as the ban on visitors at nursing homes last year in the middle of the pandemic.
Dr Russell says aged care lobby groups typically represent the service providers rather than older Australians and their families who have experience with the system.
Aged Care Reform Now is encouraging the public to register complaints about aged care – both big and small – on complaints tracker issues.watch to help the group identify systemic issues.
www.smh.com.au/national/the-movement-that-gives-older-australians-a-voice-in-aged-care-reform-20210226-p5769t.html
Peter Norden’s first experience of navigating the byzantine aged care system was after he had an operation last year.
The 71-year-old founder of Jesuit Social Services, prison reform advocate and honorary fellow at Deakin University is no intellectual slouch, but he says the process of organising support in his home was confusing and bureaucratic.
“I’ve been working at a fairly high level – teaching and writing and research – and I couldn’t understand what it was all about,” Dr Norden says.
“When I started trying to change providers, there were so many barriers and hoops to jump through that you almost felt it was a waste of time; you make so many damn phone calls. I found it bureaucratic, complex and difficult to feel any sense of control or that I was a partner in this.”
Dr Norden is a member of a new lobby group – Aged Care Reform Now – formed to give older Australians and their families a voice in the movement to reform aged care in Australia.
The group wants to ensure the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety – to be publicly released this week – are translated into action.
“It seems to me it’s not just a shortage of money, it’s a system that needs to be reformed,” Dr Norden says.
“People who are not at a super-advanced stage like myself, whose brains still mostly operate OK, want to be able to use their own judgment to make choices, and to reallocate services as their needs change, not to be on a waiting list for a year or two.”
The royal commission was announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018 after incidents of abuse and neglect – including the Oakden nursing home scandal in Adelaide – fuelled claims the aged care sector was in crisis.
Aged Care Reform Now co-founder Dr Sarah Russell said there had been almost 20 inquiries into the aged care sector over the past two decades but, despite some “fantastic recommendations”, there had been little change.
“We have started this movement because we are expecting some really important recommendations to come out of the royal commission and we are going to put pressure on MPs around the country to to make this an election issue,” she said.
“This is a chance of a lifetime to change this sector. Otherwise we are going to keep hearing about the negligence, keep hearing about abuse, keep hearing about heartbreaking stories and they have to stop.”
Dr Russell, a public health researcher, became involved in aged care advocacy after her parents moved into an aged care home in 2010.
“People were making complaints about lots of different things at the home but they were all secret,” Dr Russell said.
”So if somebody put in a complaint to the complaints commissioner about staffing levels, or the food or the care that their parent was getting no one knew, because these are all secrets. And it seemed to me quite early on, if we could actually consider complaints as feedback they can be used for quality improvement.“
Aged Care Reform Now is pushing for a far more transparent aged care system, with public reports of complaints and how they are managed, mandatory reporting of elder abuse, public access to the regulator’s spot check reports and financial transparency.
It wants a new aged care act that focuses on human rights, increased staffing levels and skills mix and – significantly – older people and their families to be involved in the design of aged care services.
“I think we infantilise older people who are recipients of home care packages and residents in aged care homes and that needs to stop,” Dr Russell said. “These are people who have opinions and experiences and views of the services that they receive.”
The group was born out of a Facebook page, where older people and their families expressed their distress at policies such as the ban on visitors at nursing homes last year in the middle of the pandemic.
Dr Russell says aged care lobby groups typically represent the service providers rather than older Australians and their families who have experience with the system.
Aged Care Reform Now is encouraging the public to register complaints about aged care – both big and small – on complaints tracker issues.watch to help the group identify systemic issues.
www.smh.com.au/national/the-movement-that-gives-older-australians-a-voice-in-aged-care-reform-20210226-p5769t.html
