The federal government has moved to dump a controversial decision that saw some older Australians charged $50 an hour for basic care like showering, just six months after the sweeping changes took effect.
A long-awaited overhaul to aged care included older people on a Support at Home package co-paying for services, in a government effort to rein in spending in the sector.
Under the scheme, which began in November, pensioners, part-pensioners and self-funded retirees paid out-of-pocket between 5 and 50 per cent of the service provider’s fee for support, including showers, which worked out to be about $50 an hour for some.
The financial hit meant some Support at Home recipients were forced to shower less or forgo other care to pay for it.
Loading…
Following sustained criticism from advocates and older Australians who described the scheme as an “obscenity”, the federal government has backed down, with Aged Care Minister Sam Rae conceding showering is an essential service.
“Showering, dressing, continence care — these aren’t optional extras. They’re the basics of aging with dignity, and no older Australian should miss out because of cost,” he said.
“Older Australians, their families and providers told us these services needed to be protected. We’ve listened, and we’re acting.”
The change will take effect from October, but co-payments for non-clinical care will continue.
Butler to unveil backdown in major speech
Health Minister Mark Butler is set to unveil the reversal during a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, where he will reveal how the government plans to stem the growth of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), with some of the money saved to be diverted to aged care.
It is not clear how much the aged care policy shift will cost taxpayers, but it is likely to be more than a billion dollars.
Council on the Ageing (COTA) acting chief executive Corey Irlam said the announcement was welcome but overdue.
“Basic care like showering and continence should never have been treated like optional extras,” he said.
“This is about dignity — no-one should have to choose between affordability and basic personal care.”
Sam Rae says basic care should never have been treated as an optional extra. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Older Persons Advocacy Network’s (OPAN) Samantha Edmond said her organisation received reports of people paying “from $50 upwards” for showering, which was “prohibitive” and “unreasonable”.
She said OPAN was “certainly surprised to see charges put on showering” in the first place.
Chief Executive of Ageing Australia, Tom Symondson, who represents providers, also backed the move as a “common sense” “human rights” decision.
“This is a really important decision to hopefully rebuild a bit of trust in the reforms that came in in November,” he said.
As a member also of the taskforce that reviewed the funding of aged care as part of the sector-wide reforms, Mr Symondson understood the decision to charge for showers came down to cost – although he never thought that was the right call.
“Providing fee-free or contribution-free services has a cost…and they [the government] had wanted to make the aged care budget more manageable into the future.”
Ageing Australia, OPAN and COTA were hopeful there would be further aged care announcements in the lead-up to the budget.
Their wishlist included moves to reduce waiting times for packages and assessments, and changing the assessment tool that used an algorithm to determine someone’s eligibility for supports at home.
“We want to see human oversight,” Ms Edmond said.
The latest backflip comes after the government caved to pressure and fast-tracked 20,000 extra home care packages to help ease the massive backlog of people waiting for help, on top of the tens of thousands more waiting for an assessment.