If you want good returns on your investment or shares. Buy into the Aged Care sector, that is if you don't care how you earn your money.

In the private sector guess who is the most important person?

If you said the resident you are wrong.

One company I know of, actually lists the Prime Minister as the most important person, followed by the CEO and so on down the list. Residents don't even make the the first 5 positions and come in at about seventh on the list. Shareholders are up higher on the list than aged care residents.

When you hear stories of nursing homes that budget 70 cents per meal per patient and purchase out of date food then you have to think that allowing aged care to be run for profit is not quite right.

The frail elderly have to rely on volunteers to audit the operations of nursing homes. Incapacitated people rely public trustees to administer their wealth/property/estate and sometimes the trustees are tight arsed because they have the power rather than taking the owner's needs, interests and underlying wealth into consideration. There was the case of the person who was denied expensive dental treatment because the [publicly appointed] trustee thought the sum was exhorbitant even though there was plenty of money in trust.

I am truly frightened of falling into the clutches of the aged care system.

I have been doing post-graduate research in to the residential aged care sector in Australia for the past year or so, and it is truly outrageous what goes on in some of the homes. There are really shocking newsworthy things like maggots in people's wounds, the recent deaths at Broughton and sexual abuse of residents, but there are also day-to-day horrors of elderly residents sitting in their own waste all day and the fact that hundreds of vulnerable seniors are slowly starving to death because most homes run under-staffed and nobody notices that people are not eating.

The Accreditation Agency is an absolute joke. Accreditation is done every 3 years, and the facilities know when they are going to be audited. There is virtually no action taken against homes which fail to meet accreditation standards, even if there are several issues of non-compliance or they fail basic standards like Medication Management and Nutrition and Hydration. Of 256 residential facilities in WA, only 14 have officially had a non-compliance finding on one or more standards. This is certainly not because the other 242 homes are of a high standard, it is because the accreditation system is a farce.

I have no fear of dying, but I am terrified of growing old. There are more protections for animals than the elderly in our society.

Modernisation: Live but bare the burden without empathy, for our humanity has forgotten to care.

Modernisation: We have an economy to run, cars to buy, wine to drink and a debt to pay.

Modernisation: A global conquest that removes us all from our true sense of being a tribe.

It seems we spend so much on advanced technology, to keep people alive, yet we fail in all areas of human services to assist humanity maintain a true quality of life.

Governments deal with populations not people.

Is this not the price of a avant-garde health economic equation boarding the experimental?

Or are we serious that OUR elder people OUGHT to live? That those feeling suicidal ... ought to live? That people who do want to die ought to live.

Live for what, if they are displaced, subsist life in pain, depression - by such cruel alienation?

God help the rest of us as we join the ranks.

I affirm:

It is high time for the aged care industry and the government to seek out a new paradigm for managing the CARE of this industry.

HEALTH CARE of all discriptions is completely out of balance with the needs of a developed country such as Australia. Australia is neglecting HEALTH and, in this case it is a specific population who contributed to the growth of building a nation of younger generations, that you ask us to ignore.

Wake Up!

We can't allow this sort of non-justice to continue to diminish or impair the quality of our true character as a NATION.

We need to give a meaning to life!

http://www.miacat.com
.

There's nothing wrong with the Aged Care Act. We just need someone willing to administer it.

The aged care "industry" - like the aboriginal "industry", I suppose - has become a mass of smooth operators, backroom deals and blatant conflicts of interest.

For example, the Aged Care Industry Council (ACIC) is out there right now spruiking its pre-election line - more money for aged care, preferably by raising fees for the elderly.
ACIC comprises Australia's two aged care "peak bodies", Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) and Aged Care Association Australia (ACAA). Many aged care facilities belong to one of these two organisations.

But take a look at this link: <http:www,acaasa,com.au/content/blogcategory/25/50/>
In SA at least, ACAA's corporate members well outnumber its aged care members.
Its 60-odd industry members include the banks NAB and BankWest, property developers Colliers International and Capital Architecture and medical software developer HealthSolve. Even the provider members tend to belong to Amity Group, another 'corporate'.

In whose interests does ACIC lobby? The elderly? The facilities? Or the "industry"?
It can't lobby for all three - their interests can conflict.
The whole of the aged care sector looks like this, from the auditors, through the consultants and up - right to the top.

It makes one feel very, very sad for the frail elderly.

Lucy

I was shocked when I was visiting my father once and a nurse popped her head into the room to ask whether he wanted sausage rolls or party pies for dinner. No, they weren't having a party he told me, it was the normal fare.

The ABC's Health Report had an article a few months ago about how drugs were improperly and incorrectly administered to residents. Slow release drugs were crushed and occasionally the dish used for crushing wasn't cleaned thus resident A who might have low blood pressure was getting traces of the medication for resident B who was being treated for high blood pressure, etc.

Both tips of the iceberg in maltreatment, me thinks.

This is an interesting topic for me. I have an 85 year old mother in an aged care facility in country SA. It is attached to the local hospital. It is managed reasonably well, however there is certainly room for improvement with regard to the food and menus that are offered. I can also see things from a professional level as a nurse. Therefore I view things from my mother's perspective and from the nurses perspective.
There are insufficient qualified nurses working in the facility and whilst the assistants and volunteers do a great job, there should be more qualified nursing staff on every shift. Oh dear, I forgot, that costs too much money!
I have not witnessed any 'abuse' as such, however I am constantly bombarded with complaints from my mother about how the residents, and more particularly herself, are treated. Unfortunately my mother is a persistent complainer on all matters, even before she went into the facility. This means that it ends up being akin to the boy who cried wolf. I am not sure when to take her seriously. She claims that she has made her complaints known to the Aged Rights Complaints service, however when I follow it up, there have been no complaints lodged by her. This leaves me in a difficult position as I am never sure when to take it seriously and take up the issues with the staff.
I do share the concerns of those who do have problems with a facility as I know from experience that it does exist.