Aged Care cuts indictment on Turnbull Government

On Monday Federal Member for Bass, Ross Hart met with a delegation of Aged Care workers from around Australia to hear about the treatment of our elders. Mary Stephenson, an aged care worker from Tasmania, was there to ask Mr Hart to support their ‘Our Turn to Care’ campaign.

The Turnbull Government’s Budget revealed the slashing of residential care to try and fix the home care crisis, allocating money to home care packages.

More than 21,000 residential aged care places will be cut over the next three years to pay for a small increase to the number of home care packages. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Mary Stephenson said “staffing has become a real issue in our aged care facilities, it means that we are unable to provide the level of care our elderly require, let alone the quality of life and care they deserve”.

“It is despicable that funding is being taken out of aged care, many of them are unable to mobilise by themselves, yet staff are expected to do more with less,” Ms Stephenson said.

Ross Hart said “the Federal Government has an obligation to provide our elderly with care that demonstrates the respect that Australians should hold for their elderly parents and grandparents”.

“When the Government can find savings and revenue to give $80 billion in tax cuts for the big banks and big business, we can’t understand why they are providing less money for an aged care sector crying out for funding,” Mr Hart said.
ROSS HART MP FEDERAL MEMBER FOR BASS