00:02Deidre de Jonga waited 15 months for this specialised chair to help support her husband
00:07with cancer. He died two weeks before it arrived.
00:11The day we were burying Gary, they called and said his chair's here.
00:16The North Queensland retiree applied for it through the Federal Government's support at home program
00:21to help people live independently and ease the burden on the residential aged care system.
00:27But the de Jongas kept waiting.
00:29I hated the chair because it arrived too late.
00:31At Charters Towers, Daryl Mulgrew is still grieving her partner of 36 years.
00:37Geoffrey Small was approved for at home support in January but told the wait time was one year.
00:42He died six months later.
00:44I felt like I'd been abandoned, basically.
00:48As of June this year, there were 107,000 people on the support at home wait list
00:53with an average wait time of 10 months.
00:55A Senate inquiry in Canberra today heard the system needs to be reformed.
01:00We would like to see a legislated timeframe of a maximum time that people will be on the minimum service
01:08offering.
01:09Advocates say stories like Ms de Jonga and Ms Mulgrew aren't uncommon.
01:13At the moment we see a system that's unable to deliver those necessary items of equipment in a timely manner.
01:21Aged Care Minister Sam Ray said wait times are moving in the right direction.
01:26The department was not available for comment.
01:28The Department was not available for comment.
01:28I don't know.
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