More nursing home beds in Fed Liberal electorates in NSW and SA
ALP spokeswoman on ageing, Senator Jan McLucas has released figures which show that Liberal held seats on Sydney’s north shore and in Adelaide are oversupplied with nursing home beds while there are shortages in many other parts of Australia.
The Federal Government has set a target of 88 beds per 1000 aged persons over 70 years for 2008, while there were 85.3 beds at June 2005. In the Prime Minister’s electorate there were 8,
0 beds – 1,194 more than the Government target.
South Australia has 720 beds more than it needs under the formula, while Sydney’s north shore ( in which the PM’s seat is located as well as Tony Abbott and Brendan Nelson’s electorates) has 1,194 surplus beds. This oversupply contrasts with the overall NSW shortage of 1,916. The region with the biggest shortage was southeast Sydney.