Experts gather to mark World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

Aged care industry leaders who gathered in Melbourne for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on 14 June have called on the community to help protect seniors.

Sue Hendy, chief executive officer of the Council on the Ageing Victoria (COTA), said financial, psychological and emotional abuses are the most common forms of abuse against older people in Australia.

“It is a shocking fact that, in the majority of cases, the abuse is perpetrated by family members. These are the people elderly Victorians are most dependent on and powerless to resist or fight,” said Ms Hendy.

“People need to recognise actions that constitute elder abuse and how to respond to them.”

To mark World Elder Abuse Awareness Day the group of eminent academics and practitioners presented workshops on current issues including elder abuse in culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, elder abuse and family violence, abuse of men and working with older people in a legal setting.

Ms Hendy said elder abuse is insidious and often follows incremental increases in abusive behaviour such as emotional bullying and blackmail.

“Putting pressure on mum to sell her house or threatening to isolate dad by withdrawing contact with the grandkids; family squabbles can progressively constitute elder abuse,” she said.

The Victorian government recently announced recurrent funding for Seniors Rights Victoria for a further four years. Seniors Rights Victoria is the advocacy and legal service central to the state government’s elder abuse prevention strategy.

Free seminars for older people on financial literacy and safeguarding finances will be held around Melbourne and Victoria throughout the year, through a partnership with Office of Senior Victorians and Victoria University.

Seniors Rights Victoria has a website (www.seniorsrights.org.au) and hotline (1300 368 821) for people, especially in Victoria, experiencing abuse or for those wanting to seek help for someone else.
 
National Seniors Australia chief executive, Michael O’Neill, commented “Financial, psychological or physical, elder abuse can range from withdrawing money from grandma’s account without her knowledge to changing her Will”.
 
A new Monash University report conducted for the Victorian Trustees Office has found the average victim of elder abuse is around 80 years old, many of whom have dementia.
 
Backing the Queensland Government’s, Act as One Against Elder Abuse, community awareness campaign, launched in Brisbane yesterday, seniors were calling on other states to follow suit.
 
“A national information campaign on what constitutes elder abuse would go a long way towards tackling what is currently a shameful, silent problem,” said Mr O’Neill.
 
“We also need a consistent approach to elder abuse across all states and a strengthening of existing measures in nursing homes.”