‘Eye-watering’: minister stares down health funds plea
Catherine Bouris |
Health ministers are continuing their crusade for more federal funding to sort aged care bed block, after key talks failed to yield concrete commitments.
State and territory ministers met on Friday with their federal counterpart Mark Butler, who did not add to existing funding he labelled as “eye-watering”.
The number of patients in hospitals awaiting transfer to aged care facilities has grown from 2700 to more than 3600 in the past year.
Delays transferring otherwise healthy people to aged care facilities mean hospitals have fewer beds available, delaying surgeries and causing longer wait times in emergency departments.
Mr Butler stared down calls for urgent intervention and referred to his government’s previous investment.
“We release our budgets and our budget updates in May and December (but) the increases we have made to aged care in our time in office have been eye-watering,” he told reporters.
“The level of demand you are seeing for aged care at home, for residential aged care, and for healthcare is climbing at unprecedented levels as we see the oldest baby boomers start to enter their 80s.”
But state and territory leaders said funding 5000 more aged care beds annually fell short of what was needed.
Australia required 10,000 new beds every year, South Australian Health Minister Blair Boyer said.
“Until we’ve got that steady pipeline coming through, as people age and get older and increasingly need that access to residential aged care … the effect on our hospital systems of ramping is going to stay like it is,” he said.
The number of people waiting for an aged care bed in South Australia had gone up by 94 per cent in the past year, Mr Boyer noted, adding that was the biggest increase in the nation.
“We are really feeling the effects of this, and we have the lowest vacancy rate in residential aged care anywhere in Australia, and that is affecting the quality of care that South Australians are getting every single day,” he said.
Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the 1400 people in his state waiting for aged care beds was the equivalent of the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital being taken out of commission each day.
“The prime minister said aged care is a commonwealth responsibility … we’d like to see more action put behind those words to support the delivery of aged care,” he said.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the fastest way for the government to address the issue was to release more home care packages as soon as possible.
“That can get some beds freed up as quickly as possible, while minister Butler is doing the reform needed to try and increase our overall bed base,” he said.
“We really need to see additional home care packages brought forward, and those home care packages be issued in totality or in full, because that allows us to give an assurance to families and to that patient.
Almost 100,000 people are waiting for Support at Home packages nationwide.
AAP