Pressure on government to address increasing demand for home care packages

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The government is under pressure to help tens of thousands of older Australians needing support so they can live at home and not go into aged care.  It's facing a senate showdown from an unlikely alliance wanting to bring forward home support packages after the government pushed the release back to November.

Transcript

00:00It's not Graham Turner's usual style to complain, but after a year waiting for extra government

00:09funded support to help him live at home, he's had enough.

00:12I tend to always think the best, but it really is very disappointing.

00:20It's not great being somewhat helpless and having to be reliant on others.

00:25The 78 year old has been approved for the highest level of at home care, but has been stuck

00:30on a lower level package because of a ballooning backlog.

00:3487,000 older people are still waiting for their approved home care package and more than 120,000

00:42are in the queue to be assessed for a home care package.

00:45That's 120,000 people on the waiting list to get onto the wait list.

00:51It's for assistance with everything from bathing to cleaning, allowing people to stay at home

00:56longer.

00:57The pressure piling on in question time.

01:00How many elderly Australians have died waiting for a home care package?

01:05The current wait times for aged care assessments are longer than they should be and we're working

01:09hard to address this in every corner of Australia.

01:12Somebody who's 97 doesn't have the luxury of time.

01:15Frustrated it's not fast enough, the coalition, Greens and independent David Pocock are rather

01:21unusually teaming up to take on the government demanding at least 20,000 packages immediately

01:28after they were delayed alongside the broader aged care reforms.

01:32The sector wasn't ready for the sweeping changes, but says it is ready to handle more home care supports.

01:38This is essentially an attempt to force the government's hand now because either way more packages are

01:45coming. 83,000 will start rolling out in November. Still not enough to cover the growing wait list.

01:55And the longer people like Graham wait, the higher the risk of decline.

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