The report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety leaves no doubt that fundamental reform is needed to address systemic failings in aged care and decades of neglect of older Australians.
Today AEHA distributed a media release that endorses the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety Report. AEHA believes that urgent consideration should be given to its recommendations, including:
The establishment of an independent authority to determine a fair funding model for different aged care services,
Mechanisms to improve governance and oversight,
Critical examination of the historical contracting of responsibility for aged care to charities and for-profit providers,
Imposition of a new levy to fund an adequately staffed high-quality aged care system, and;
New models of primary healthcare to ensure coordinated and proactive approaches to the complex healthcare needs of older Australians.
Australian Ethical Health Alliance (AEHA) Chair Mr Adrian Cosenza said, “The report highlights assaults on residents in aged care facilities, deaths from preventable illness, overuse of physical and chemical restraints, poor infection control procedures, drastic shortages of trained staff and failure of those in power to address known problems. Of greatest concern, this has been reported previously but is still endemic within the sector.”
For Professor Ian Kerridge, Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Ethics Committee and a member of the AEHA Steering Committee, “Enacting the recommendations is essential. It will take time, money, and bravery on the part of organisations—both public and private—to acknowledge the need for change. It will also require reversal of policies that have limited access to home care and aged care and stripped away resources.”
“It is the AEHA’s view that the Commission’s report also provides a tremendous opportunity to reconstruct aged care not as an impost on taxpayers, or a business opportunity for health providers, but as a moral obligation to care for and protect older Australians. This should be a fundamental human right,” added Mr Cosenza.