First published by Health Services Daily.

Council on the Ageing CEO Gohar Yazdabadi told the [the Community Affairs References Committee] hearing that the Support at Home program “has failed older Australians”.

“A system that leaves people waiting for essential care until their health deteriorates, they enter hospital and die has failed in its most basic responsibility,” Ms Yazdabadi said in her opening statement.

“Behind the waiting times are people going without the help that they need, and their families are trying to hold the arrangements together.

“Older people are spending sleepless nights stranded in hospital because there is no safe and supported way home. Promises of care have gone unfulfilled.”

Ms Yazdabadi said those failures “demand accountability”.

“Older people were entitled to expect that support would be there when they needed it. They should not have to reach crisis before the system responds. Yet, even when they reach crisis now, the system is not there to support them.”

Ms Yazdabadi told the hearing that price inflation was occurring “across the board”.

“We’re seeing that sort of inflation not just for assisted technology.

“People are coming to us and saying that the level of co-payments that we’re paying for under Support at Home, we could actually just take the copayment amount, go to a private provider, and get a service that would probably be much better and much better suited for us.”

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