Post by bear on Oct 30, 2020 7:09:26 GMT 7
A more humane, less costly solution for aged care: stay at home
The royal commission into aged care has emerged as a key playmaker in the country’s preparations for the Baby Boomer generation’s 80th birthday party in six years when the first of us receive our OBE (proudly referred to as Over Bloody Eighty by its recipients). The commission will most certainly need all the skills and cunning of a Cameron Smith to convince governments and communities of the wisdom of its findings; there is already no doubt it is going to be a very expensive party.
The unanswered question is who will foot the bill – the kids or the state?
Reducing the number of Australians in residential aged care could be cost-effective - and kinder to the elderly. NIC WALKER
No doubt there will be recommendations for additional residential aged care regulation, increased staff-to-resident ratios and increased training and qualifications for care workers. All of which adds to the cost of residential care and makes staying at home increasingly attractive and more competitive.
With cost in mind, the royal commission has taken a particular interest in the views of Jos Schols, a professor of aged medicine from the Netherlands. His country, he advised, has reduced the proportion of older people in residential aged care from 7.5 per cent to 3 per cent, and is now in line with the European average. (Australia remains at 7.5 per cent.)
Schols gave two reasons for the shift: old people prefer to be in their own homes, and it saves money. Bearing in mind that about 40 per cent of Netherlands’ residents live in public housing and its population growth is a fraction of Australia’s – 0.6 per cent versus 1.6 per cent – it is arguable that we have a need to free up housing stock that they do not. But the point remains that living longer at home is a solution to the challenge of caring for our frail elderly that could, for once, please everyone.
One unpublished study has suggested every additional hour of home care lowered the chance of going into residential care by 6 per cent.
How did the Netherlands do it? By improving the quality of in-home care and making it very difficult to get into a nursing home.
However, even if Australia got down to 3 per cent living in residential care, there is not going to be a surplus of residential care beds. Three per cent of Baby Boomers is still a very big number.
So the question remains: how can we make residential aged care more than palliative, more than a frightening place we go to to die and, if media reporting is to be believed, fearing physical abuse, bad food, neglect and being gradually forgotten by the relatives who put us there? Knowing we will leave in a coffin might be the least of our concerns.
The Boomers will at least be able to afford quality residential care amenities. They need to know that the must-have is not a home theatre or even a hydrotherapy pool; it is aged-friendly toilets.
This is more than channelling Grace and Frankie (again). Think about it. The most common infection in nursing homes (often leading to hospitalisation and untimely death) is diarrhoea, followed by urinary tract infections. Yes, our old friend, E. coli flourishes in parts of the body it was not meant to be in when people are not properly cleaned, with UTIs the result, or where poor hand hygiene among staff spreads it fast in the form of diarrhoea.
The Japanese have a head start on us; one of the oldest nations on earth, it has put a lot of effort into reducing sickness and infection in residential aged care. A standard Japanese toilet, marvelled at by Australian tourists, flushes the water horizontally across the bowl to minimise the bacteria load entering the air, and provides washing and drying in situ.
Not only do Japanese lavatories provide a more hygienic and thorough clean for residents, they also reduce the extremely daunting challenge faced by aged-care workers on every morning shift in every residential aged-care home in the country: the manual removal of excrement from other people’s bodies. Every day. This must be a huge stress for staff no amount of extra training is likely to reduce.
While nothing excuses abuse, it is one area for improvement that would go a long way to making life more pleasant, and healthier, for all in a residential aged-care facility.
No one likes talking about this, which is why it remains the least spoken about challenge of safe residential aged care. And that's downright dangerous.
www.smh.com.au/national/a-more-humane-less-costly-solution-for-aged-care-stay-at-home-20201028-p5698q.html
The royal commission into aged care has emerged as a key playmaker in the country’s preparations for the Baby Boomer generation’s 80th birthday party in six years when the first of us receive our OBE (proudly referred to as Over Bloody Eighty by its recipients). The commission will most certainly need all the skills and cunning of a Cameron Smith to convince governments and communities of the wisdom of its findings; there is already no doubt it is going to be a very expensive party.
The unanswered question is who will foot the bill – the kids or the state?
Reducing the number of Australians in residential aged care could be cost-effective - and kinder to the elderly. NIC WALKER
No doubt there will be recommendations for additional residential aged care regulation, increased staff-to-resident ratios and increased training and qualifications for care workers. All of which adds to the cost of residential care and makes staying at home increasingly attractive and more competitive.
With cost in mind, the royal commission has taken a particular interest in the views of Jos Schols, a professor of aged medicine from the Netherlands. His country, he advised, has reduced the proportion of older people in residential aged care from 7.5 per cent to 3 per cent, and is now in line with the European average. (Australia remains at 7.5 per cent.)
Schols gave two reasons for the shift: old people prefer to be in their own homes, and it saves money. Bearing in mind that about 40 per cent of Netherlands’ residents live in public housing and its population growth is a fraction of Australia’s – 0.6 per cent versus 1.6 per cent – it is arguable that we have a need to free up housing stock that they do not. But the point remains that living longer at home is a solution to the challenge of caring for our frail elderly that could, for once, please everyone.
One unpublished study has suggested every additional hour of home care lowered the chance of going into residential care by 6 per cent.
How did the Netherlands do it? By improving the quality of in-home care and making it very difficult to get into a nursing home.
However, even if Australia got down to 3 per cent living in residential care, there is not going to be a surplus of residential care beds. Three per cent of Baby Boomers is still a very big number.
So the question remains: how can we make residential aged care more than palliative, more than a frightening place we go to to die and, if media reporting is to be believed, fearing physical abuse, bad food, neglect and being gradually forgotten by the relatives who put us there? Knowing we will leave in a coffin might be the least of our concerns.
The Boomers will at least be able to afford quality residential care amenities. They need to know that the must-have is not a home theatre or even a hydrotherapy pool; it is aged-friendly toilets.
This is more than channelling Grace and Frankie (again). Think about it. The most common infection in nursing homes (often leading to hospitalisation and untimely death) is diarrhoea, followed by urinary tract infections. Yes, our old friend, E. coli flourishes in parts of the body it was not meant to be in when people are not properly cleaned, with UTIs the result, or where poor hand hygiene among staff spreads it fast in the form of diarrhoea.
The Japanese have a head start on us; one of the oldest nations on earth, it has put a lot of effort into reducing sickness and infection in residential aged care. A standard Japanese toilet, marvelled at by Australian tourists, flushes the water horizontally across the bowl to minimise the bacteria load entering the air, and provides washing and drying in situ.
Not only do Japanese lavatories provide a more hygienic and thorough clean for residents, they also reduce the extremely daunting challenge faced by aged-care workers on every morning shift in every residential aged-care home in the country: the manual removal of excrement from other people’s bodies. Every day. This must be a huge stress for staff no amount of extra training is likely to reduce.
While nothing excuses abuse, it is one area for improvement that would go a long way to making life more pleasant, and healthier, for all in a residential aged-care facility.
No one likes talking about this, which is why it remains the least spoken about challenge of safe residential aged care. And that's downright dangerous.
www.smh.com.au/national/a-more-humane-less-costly-solution-for-aged-care-stay-at-home-20201028-p5698q.html