00:00More than 3,000 aged care patients are currently in public hospital beds, a 25% increase in
00:09just three months according to new collective figures released by the states and territories.
00:15Those patients are medically fit for discharge but stuck in hospital while waiting for a
00:20federal government residential aged care bed.
00:23The report has noted a significant shortfall in aged care beds with about 800 delivered
00:28by the government last financial year compared to an estimated annual demand of 10,600.
00:35The states and territories estimate the cost to taxpayers is $1.2 billion a year.
00:42The report's release coincides with a funding stout between the states and territories and
00:47the Albanese government over Commonwealth funding for public hospitals.
00:51The Health Minister Mark Butler has met with his state and territory counterparts in Brisbane
00:56where they failed to reach a deal.
00:58The ABC understands Anthony Albanese has offered $21 billion over five years as well as an
01:05additional $2 billion over four years to deal with the problem of aged care patients occupying
01:12public hospital beds.
01:14Mark Butler remains confident a deal can be reached before the end of the year.
01:18I still feel very confident we can do this by Christmas.
01:22The one reliable thing about Australian politics is that state governments ask for more money
01:27from the Commonwealth.
01:28We've got at the moment $33 billion additional funding for hospitals on the table as well as
01:34more money to help smooth the path of older patients through the hospital system.
01:39Currently some of those questions are going to have to be resolved by our bosses, the Prime
01:43Minister and Premiers though.
01:45President of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine, Professor Sue
01:50Curl, says there's no easy solution.
01:53It's the perfect storm.
01:56There are more older people.
01:58We are ageing rapidly in Australia.
02:00There's lots of baby boomers coming through.
02:03There's more people with dementia because that's related to age.
02:07There are more complications in terms of the funding for aged care and that's a lot worse in the last month with the new Aged Care Act.
02:18The Act itself is great, but the costings, the way costs are calculated for each older person, that's changed a lot.
02:30There is no easy fix because we're dealing with an older population.
02:36The issue is, yeah, we were meant to have around 10,000 new beds in the last financial year.
02:41Instead, 800 were delivered.
02:44It's expensive to bill.
02:46You're looking at, you know, around $900,000 per bed to build and there's a lag time.
02:54So there's a lot of work to be done by the Commonwealth to encourage providers to build more beds, where I think occupancy currently in aged care homes is about 94%.
03:10It should be around 90%.
03:14So we've got a bit of work to do there to enable more beds to be available for older people.
03:20And the right sort of beds.
03:22We need beds for people who have dementia and may need extra care.
03:28That in itself is a whole problem that the Aged Care Royal Commission brought up.
03:33And there's issues about families being a little reluctant to look at their family member going into aged care or an older person not wanting to go.
03:44I mean, no one really wants to go into aged care.
03:47So there's a whole lot of barriers being put up.
03:51And we have a lot of work to do to address those.
03:54So there's a lot of work to do.
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