FEARS VITAL NORTHERN SERVICES ARE SET TO BE PRIVATISED

HACSU IS CALLING ON THE STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS TO RULE OUT PRIVATISING HOME CARE AND COMMUNITY OPTIONS SERVICES.

Home Care (including Home Maintenance and Modification) and the Community Options Service (COS), are at risk of being privatised. The State Government announced a review of these services in 2015 stating they were under review because they are not “core THS (Tasmanian Health Service) business”.

“Home Care and COS jointly provide services to almost 800 Northern Tasmanians. These Tasmanians should be justifiably outraged that their government considers their needs as non-core business,” HACSU State Secretary, Tim Jacobson said.

“Essentially the THS is telling the people who use these services that they are not important. It is time the Government stopped seeing numbers on a page and started looking at the individual lives their heartless cost saving measures are having a devastating effect on,” Mr Jacobson said.

91% of referrals to Home Maintenance and Modification come from the LGH’s Occupational Therapy Department and include items such as grab rails, ramps, hand held showers and other modifications in homes that enable people to stay at home longer and be safe.

“If the provision of safety measures in the homes of accident victims, stroke victims and other people who require care and support in order to maintain dignity and quality of life in their own homes is not “core business” of our health system, then I do not know what is.”

“It is shameful that vulnerable people in our community are being treated with such contempt by a government whose only concern is numbers on page,” said Mr Jacobson.

HACSU is calling on the State and Federal Governments to rule out privatising these vital northern community services.
HACSU State Secretary, Tim Jacobson