Every dollar counts for Qld seniors
Seniors in Queensland can now utilise a comprehensive guide to concessions, retail discounts, rebates and assistance available in Queensland.
The Every Dollar Counts website aims to help families, pensioners and Queenslanders who may be financially stretched, or want to save on future energy expenses.
The assistance includes help for things like buying a home, saving for a rental bond, saving on power, investing in solar panels and more.
The guide lists concessions offered by the Queensland Government on services such as ambulance, public transport, electricity, motor vehicle registration, council rates, health, recreation and education.
To find out more go to http://www.communityservices.qld.gov.au/community/concessions/
Aged care the next health reform priority
The Queensland government has reaffirmed its strong support for national health reform in the critical area of aged care.
Parliamentary Secretary for Healthy Living, Murray Watt, has welcomed the Commonwealth’s progress on aged care reforms and advocated for better coordination of aged care services across the health, aged care and disability sectors.
He said that aged care continues to remain a key issue in Queensland and the Queensland Government is pleased it has remained high on the Federal Government’s agenda.
However he believed that there are still too many elderly patients remaining in Queensland public hospitals because of chronic shortages of aged care facilities.
On average, on any night in Queensland public hospitals there are around 400 beds occupied by elderly patients who would receive more appropriate ongoing care in aged care facilities.
To put this in perspective, if aged care patients were moved out of acute hospitals to more appropriate care it would free up enough spare beds to fill a hospital the size of Cairns or Rockhampton, he said.
