‘It’s inappropriate – plain and simple’

The elderly should not be housed in the same accommodation as young people with disabilities because both groups have different care needs, Aged Care Association Australia’s chief executive officer, Rod Young, tells DPSe News.

Despite an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report, released yesterday (Thursday, 21 July 2011) which stated there was a significant reduction in the number of younger people in residential aged care facilities, Mr Young and disability support advocates say the shared-accommodation arrangement was “inappropriate” and a large proportion of young people are still living with older Australians in aged care.

The AIHW report indicates about 1,141 people have been assisted by the Younger People with Disability in Residential Aged Care (YPIRAC) program in the last four years, making this a 29% reduction in the number of people under 50 living in residential aged care.

The YPIRAC program is a five-year initiative agreed to by the Council of Australian Governments in 2006. It aims to reduce the number of young people (those aged under 65 years) with disabilities who are living in residential aged care.

Mr Young told DPS eNews that is was “inappropriate” for an aged care resident to be “forced” to share a home with younger people who often have different social requirements and care needs.

“Plain and simple, it is probably quite inappropriate for the aged care resident to be forced to share a home with younger people with different social and entertainment requirements,” he says.

“Even sleeping times vary among the aged and the young, so in my view, it is inappropriate because an older person has different care needs to a younger person.”

The issue is not “going to go away”, according to Mr Young, who says a program to find more appropriate accommodation would “certainly be applauded”.

“We do need to have both levels of government, state and federal, review the care and accommodation needs in providing options for groups of various ages who don’t fit the criteria of an older person – either frail aged or dementia affected,” Mr Young says.

“We need to have solutions to service both the aged and young person’s needs, and to not just depend on the residential aged care system,” he says.

However, AIHW spokesperson, Nigel Harding, says facilities designed for younger people with disabilities can be “difficult to find”, and “sometimes they end up in accommodation that is not really suitable”.

The most common reason YPIRAC service users gave for living in residential aged care was the lack of appropriate alternative accommodation.

Nearly 20% of those in residential aged care reported they were satisfied with the accommodation but needed additional services, and a further 7% indicated appropriate disability support services were unavailable.

The report also indicated the YPIRAC program helped about 139 people under the age of 65 to move out of residential aged care and into accommodation that better suited their situation, and a further 207 were successfully diverted away from entering residential aged care. More than 400 received enhanced services while remaining in residential aged care.

The federal government has guaranteed funding so that the 1,100 people already helped by the program will not have to end up in aged care facilities.

However, it is up to the state and territory governments to provide funding for additional people to be diverted from aged care facilities; but Dr Bronwyn Morkham, of the Young People in Nursing Homes Alliance, said the “terrific figures” had already shown that the collaboration between federal and state governments was working.

Do you find it “inappropriate” that elderly residents are forced to share residential aged care facilities with younger people with disabilities? What alternative measure would you suggest? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.