Skip to main content RSS Info Close Search Facebook Twitter
Location
Category
Providers / Vacancies
Feedback

Meals on Wheels face petrol price rise crisis

Meals and Wheels services around the country are struggling to keep going as petrol prices continue to rise.

Although service providers are doing their best to absorb the increasing costs, volunteers are already bearing the burden in some cases.

The Manager of the Queensland Meals on Wheels Association, Debra Tape, estimates that volunteer drivers are taking on fuel costs of up to $40 a week.

“A lot of the Meals on Wheels services in Queensland are not paying for the petrol anymore, so some drivers are having to pay out of their own pockets,” she said.

While current volunteers are finding it harder to keep going, Ms Tape said the biggest challenge for services will be finding new drivers.

“The real issue will be felt more in the future, because it is going to be very hard to find more volunteers with petrol prices the way they are.”

Her NSW counterpart, Les McDonald, said the sharp rise in petrol in recent months comes on the back of existing difficulties in recruiting volunteers.

“It has been hard for us to find new volunteers for some time now in any case, and this is just throwing in an additional problem that people did not need,” he said.

Mr McDonald warned that if Home and Community Care (HACC) funding is not increased beyond current projections, some services will be forced to close down.

“If something is not done fairly soon about this, within 18 months to two years, we are going to start to see quite a number of Meals on Wheels services that are struggling to survive, particularly if petrol hits $2 a litre.”

In this year’s federal budget the government provided an extra $15 million over three years to the Volunteer Grants Program in response to a 40% rise in petrol costs over the last five years.

Share this article

Read next

Subscribe

Subscribe to our Talking Aged Care newsletter to get our latest articles, delivered straight to your inbox
  1. Who says your age should limit your dreams?
  2. Data from a recently released report highlights a concerning...
  3. With an ageing and growing population, data from the...
  4. Approximately 411,000 Australians are estimated to be living...
  5. How could you benefit from attending university as an older...
  6. Fueling your body with healthy foods as you age could help...

Recent articles

  1. Do you know how to reduce your risk of being scammed?
  2. Who says your age should limit your dreams?
  3. How did residents celebrate their aged care precinct’s...
  4. Why is the passing of the Aged Care Act Bill so important for...
  5. What is the expected impact of the changes to the upcoming...
  6. Recently published retirees prove that it’s never too...
  7. In the last decade, people aged 65 years or older were...
  8. What caused an increase in the number of calls to advocacy...
  9. Managing your medications may seem difficult but it...
  10. Dementia Australia’s free information sessions can help...
  11. Waiting to update your will and other legal documents could...
  12. Palliative care allows Australians at the end of their lives...
  1. {{ result.posted_at | timeago }}

Sorry, no results were found
Perhaps you misspelled your search query, or need to try using broader search terms.
Please type a topic to search
Some frequently searched topics are "dementia", "elderly" etc
Close