It’s time we stop viewing aged care as long-term accommodation for older people and accept that aged care is healthcare, Dr Khorshid wrote in a moving opinion piece published in the Guardian earlier this week.
Dr Khorshid said that despite the best efforts of hard-working GPs, nurses and specialists, our broken aged care system suffers from a critical deficit of healthcare in our nursing homes, care that our older Australians deserve.
Emphasising that we need to attract more GPs and other specialists to work in aged care by incentivising them better, Dr Khorshid said, “We want to make sure the GP is adequately supported and compensated for time away from their practice for nursing home visits”.
Generating strong interest from readers, the article received more than 140 comments including: “…I worked in nursing homes for twenty years – during that period I watched in horror at what was happening to the system. No nurses – or just one to cope with the demands of too many people. Cruelty, starvation and “care” regimes that were perverse….”
Read the full opinion piece here.
