Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to speak tonight about a very important issue in my electorate and, indeed, right around Australia, and that is the issue of aged care—particularly dementia care.

Over the parliamentary break, in my travels around the electorate, I visited with people in some of the western towns and discussed the issues that they are having in those smaller communities with regard to suitable care for their loved ones and their parents. Indeed, we heard some heartbreaking stories. In Lake Cargelligo a couple has been married for 60 to 65 years and one of them has dementia and has to be cared for 100 kilometres away. Can you imagine, after being together a lifetime, in your final years, being separated by distance? That is very difficult. It may be that at best you can see your husband or wife maybe once a week. That is completely unacceptable!

There are some things that we do not talk about that, I think, are very important. We quite often talk about health care, and we talk about the needs around that and medical care. But one of the things we do not talk about is the importance of the final stages of your life and the ability to die amongst the people that you know best—your family and your friends. The absolute uprooting of people in their final days to be taken somewhere else, and to have their final days surrounded by strangers, is particularly difficult.

As we talk of economics and balancing the budget, in this place, we need to keep in mind that into the future we are going to have an increased burden with aged care and dementia. A simple fact of life is that those of us who are baby boomers are, all things being equal, probably going to live to be the oldest generation in our history. One of the problems of living to an old age is that it is nearly inevitable that we will receive some form of dementia. It is important that we make provision now, as people who are in government in this place, so that when the time comes this country is equipped to have the resources for the appropriate care.

I will be working with communities, like Lake Cargelligo, Warren and other smaller communities in my electorate, to make sure that we have the appropriate care for our elderly. The MPS model—the Multi-Purpose Service model—has been one of the great successes of partnerships between state and federal government, where the federal government funds the aged care component and the state government funds the critical care. But what is becoming a reality is that this model is nearly at the end of its time and we are going to have to plan for the next stage. As the demographics of our society, particularly in small country towns, changes we need to make sure that we have that appropriate care.

Over that period, I was pleased to be able to welcome the announcement from the Minister for Health that we have received more funding for beds in Lake Cargelligo, Warren, Coonamble, Lightning Ridge and Collarenebri. They have all received funding for more high-care aged beds. But we need to be ahead of the game. We need to make sure that we can care for our most valued citizens right to the end of their lives, to offer them a place to die with dignity in the very place that they have lived their lives.

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