Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I want to question the Minister for Aged Care. It was interesting that this budget did not have any aged care cuts. It is the first one in quite some time. I am pleased that the minister managed to not have aged care as an ATM for the government this time after $3 billion of cuts in the last few years. I think the older Australians, and their families who care for them, appreciate that there were not further cuts in this budget.

I want the minister to answer some legitimate questions, and I want raise some constituent issues that have been raised with me about homecare services. It is interesting that backbenchers on the other side have also raised the issue of ACAT assessments and waits for homecare packages, because there is no doubt that the ACAT assessments have blown out substantially. When we asked some questions in Senate estimates last year the department said, 'Yes, there is a bit of a problem,' and they have gone off to try to talk to the states to try to remedy some of those.

Since the change of the Living Longer Living Better reforms—which were Labor's reforms and bipartisan, and I acknowledge that—there is now a bit of an issue about the actual packages and the level of packages available, and the waiting lists for those.

I want to give the minister a couple of examples of what people who have contacted me have said. The first, whom I will refer to as Mr BF, is a consumer from Victoria. He was approved for a level 4 homecare package and is currently receiving a level 1. He has been queued now for 432 days for his level 4 package. These are frail, elderly people who need services. He has a diagnosis of dementia. His cognitive state is declining. It has been worsening with his behaviours and his outbursts. It is causing distress not just for him but also for his wife, who is his carer. He and his wife are in distress and they clearly are not adequately supported on a level 1 package. They have no indication of how long they are going to wait to get a higher care package and it is putting them at risk, and what is happening in that place at risk

I have another one here, which is from Mr MB from South-West Sydney. He has Parkinson's disease and was approved for a level 4 package on 9 March 2015. He has now been queued for 756 days. He has not been assigned any interim package at all. He is now a candidate for a premature admission to residential aged care, because he cannot get the services he needs.

Here is another: Mr B, a consumer from South Australia. He is a retried GP. He has progressive motor neurone disease. He and his wife have relocated from a regional area closer to family and medical services. He started on a level 2 package in August 2016 with an approval for a level 4 package. He now has been waiting 280 days for the upgrade. It is impossible for him and his wife to know where they are in the queue, how much further they are going to wait and where he is progressing. It has become very difficult for his wife. They cannot plan for his deteriorating condition. His wife has now had to give up her job to care for him full-time. The financial circumstances are now even more difficult for them while they try to source alternative options while they are waiting for this package.

Another is Mrs A, who has organised a package for her mother. She is from Tasmania. She was waiting for her mother to be assessed by the local ACAT. She had to wait 123 days for the ACAT assessment. When it occurred, she was told that the new digital format they required to provide client data is taking excessive amounts of time now and is causing problems with the assessment and causing the time to blow out from two weeks to now three months. She was told that her mother would not even be added to the waitlist for the package until the ACAT assessment had been completed. She received approval for a level 4 package after that assessment, and she has now been told by My Aged Care that she could be waiting up to nine months for that package.

These are very frail people whose condition is really serious. They are going to end up in an emergency department or end up prematurely in residential aged care. I know the minister understands this is an issue. What I would like to know is: what is the government doing to address it? Has the government done an assessment of the waiting lists? I am told that we will not have the waiting list data till July. In the meantime, what is happening to these poor people and their families is not good enough. How is the government going to fix this? It is not good enough, in today's day and age, with the money we are putting into the aged-care system, for this still to be happening to people and their families.

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