Yesterday’s hearing of the Senate inquiry into Labor’s aged care ‘Support at Home’ 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 ‘rights based care.’ But, as pointed out in multiple submissions, the way care is rationed calls these ‘rights’ into question.
“Rights that exist in legislation but not in practice are not rights at all.” – Saviour Buhagair, Uniting NSW.ACT
Alternate to the government’s approach would be a ‘right to care.’ Rather than just guaranteeing rights once care has commenced, have a proactive right to receive essential aged care.
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.
“The Support at Home means test is just economically illiterate.” – Professor David Cullen
Older people on the same income are paying significantly more or less depending on how much support they’re getting, which forces those with the highest needs into residential care. Professor Cullen calls this method of means testing a ‘stupid idea.’
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’t acted on the funding itself.
“Getting faster access to inadequate funding doesn’t solve the problem.” – Clare Sullivan, MND Australia
Worse, Labor’s 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.
“The 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’t make any sense and it doesn’t reflect what people need.” – Clare Sullivan, MND Australia
The Senate passed a Greens motion last month calling on the Integrated Assessment Tool to be abolished.
As stated by Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Greens Older People Spokesperson:
“The evidence proving that Labor’s aged care reforms are harming older Australians continues to pile up.
“Support at Home is rights-based in name only, and it’s past time Labor guaranteed a genuine right to care and an end to rationing.
“Copayments are denying care to the most vulnerable, and forcing them into the residential system or hospital.
“The Integrated Assessment Tool is broken and beyond fixing – the government needs to listen to the Senate and scrap it.
“Labor and the Minister are clearly out of their depth on aged care, and their ignorance and recklessness are hurting older people.”
