Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The phone goes in the office. There's another family in crisis. This time, a mum and dad sold their house to move into a nursing home and they are both in need. The nursing home rang the day before and said: 'We can't take you today. We have no staff.' It wasn't, 'We're not ready for you.' It was, 'We have no staff.' So mum and dad are living with their sister-in-law. The other sister-in-law rings up, saying: 'The sister-in-law can't cope. Mum has great needs and Dad also has needs. They have to go into a nursing home now. What can you do for us? The federal member can get them into another place, but that's 40 kilometres away from where the family is.' They were asked, 'Could you last another week?'

What are the knock-on effects affecting all of our nursing homes, especially the not-for-profits and the for-profits in smaller communities? You can't get another nurse down the street. You can't get another staff member down the street. You can't just ring up and get someone from down the road who does not need to take a tram to get to you. This is happening in every regional seat across Australia. There are no staff and few doctors because of damaging changes that the government made with regard to doctor ratios in country Victoria, regional Victoria and around Australia. There are knock-on consequences for every decision a government makes. We need to address our own local community aged-care facilities now.