The Morrison government pledged an extra effort by funding $537 on aged care to deal with the three priority areas: the shortage of home-care packages, overuse of chemical restraint and the removal of younger people in aged care.
The majority of the funding ($496.3M) will be allotted to 10,000 home-care programs, while $25.5M is allotted for the management of chemical restraints, $10M for dementia training and $4.7M for the removal of younger people from aged care.
According to Scott Morrison, the measures are just part of the initial response and he affirmed that there is more to be done especially in the field of aged-care.
He also affirmed the awareness of the government on issues such as viability questions arise and the possible collapse of aged care providers.
Richard Colbeck, the aged-care minister told that the existing funding to such sector is not fit for purpose and this involved the government to play with the new model in paying providers that focus on dealing with the need of the residents that affects the providers’ viability.
Last October, the aged-care royal commission released an interim report that highlights the negative disposition of the aged care system as ‘unkind and uncaring’ due to the increasing number of Australians waiting for home-care packages at 120,000. $2.5bn is needed to respond to such a waitlist.
In a joint statement released on Monday, Morrison, health minister Greg Hunt and Colbeck affirmed that the government should do something to deal with the problem.
The interim report urged the minister to administer changes that will begin to roll out by December 1 and on January 1, the government will provide stronger safeguards for the prescriptions of the antipsychotic drug risperidone.
Among the major changes that the minister is seeking to bring about is the proper prescription of the drug and this made them create new rules that will require doctors to apply for additional approval to prescribe risperidone after the initial 12-week period.
Moreover, the interim report also recommended that younger people should be removed from aged care. Specifically, younger people should be prohibited from aged care by 2022 and should be completely out by 2025, following limited exemptions.
The government also seeks to found a joint taskforce from departments of health, social services and the National Disability Insurance Agency and a specialist team from the latter to hinder younger people with disabilities to enter aged care and instead apply for disability insurance scheme from entering aged care.
Julie Collins, the Labor’s aged care spokeswoman expressed her critique to the government response as inadequate and just a drop in the ocean of what is needed to completely respond to the problems highlighted by the interim report.
She added that many older Australians are still suffering from the lack of access to aged care they have been approved for.
Numbers of complaints have been continuously plummeting in 3 years from 2015-2019 at 3,936 to 7,828.
Stuart Robert, the government services minister reported that between March 2017 and June 2019, there has been an 11% reduction of young people getting in aged care from 6,287 to 5,606.
Along with the report, Robert affirmed that the removal of younger people from aged care demands a huge number of houses to be built, providers’ engagement and received the necessary support for it.
