TODAY MARKS THE OUR TURN TO CARE CAMPAIGN’S NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION, WITH A TASMANIAN EVENT BEING HELD AT 12PM AT PARLIAMENT LAWNS IN HOBART.
Across Australia aged care workers, residents, families and employers are today joining together for the first time to call on our nation’s leaders to support quality aged care. For too long funding for vital aged care services that support some of our community’s most needy, and on which many of us will one day rely, have suffered from deep and sustained cuts. As a result of the Government cutting more than 4 billion dollars from aged care, service providers have been struggling and standards could slip.
The Our Turn to Care campaign has been created to end these cuts by standing for a dignified life for older Australians and improved funding for aged care. Today marks the first time that those touched by cuts to the sector have united to say enough is enough.
As the oldest state with the highest care needs, Tasmanians have been uniquely impacted by these cuts – many of us are seeing their impact first hand. Our vision is for an aged care sector that delivers quality care that can meet our community’s growing needs and we are calling on nation’s leaders help us realise this.
To demonstrate the scale of the cuts that have for too long gone unseen the campaign has created a Field of Families that will be on display to help politicians and community members alike see just how far the cuts have gone. Each family represents around 10 million dollars worth of cuts in funding to the sector, funding that limits the ability of service providers and staff to deliver care to those who need it.
With our friends across the country, we call on all politicians to commit to quality care and a dignified life for all older Australians.
HACSU State Secretary Tim Jacobson
