No shortage of aged care beds

Some health professionals are blaming the alleged shortage of aged care beds for the increasing number of elderly people “swamping” Victorian hospitals, despite DPS Publishing’s extensive nation-wide bed vacancy listing which shows Victorian aged care facilities are amongst those with the most bed vacancies among the states.

DPS’s bed vacancies, published on its website – www.AgedCareGuide.com.au – indicates the allegation of the shortage of beds in Victoria is most likely unfounded, with the listings showing at least 346 empty beds at aged care facilities and residential homes in the state.

DPS Vacancies are limited to 14 days which ensures they are up to date and relevant.

An article, published on The Age newspaper’s website yesterday (Thursday, 2 June 2011), reported an increase in elderly patients who flock to Victorian hospitals, while nearly a third of other patients in the second half of last year waited longer than “clinically appropriate times” for treatment in emergency departments.

The article states hospitals have become “increasingly clogged with elderly patients who could not get into aged care centres”.

The Age article quotes chairman of the Victorian Faculty of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Dr Simon Judkins, as saying: “governments needed to work on other ways of freeing up beds with more aged care facilities and more staff on weekends to discharge patients.”

President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Harry Hemley, also slams aged care, suggesting the Baillieu government’s first hospital report card shows how much “pressure the hospital system is under and highlighted the need for ongoing investment, particularly in aged care services”.

The report shows that of those who missed out on timely treatment, 86,000 were seriously ill, with conditions such as severe blood loss, breathing difficulties and dehydration.

The number of patients staying in emergency departments longer than 24 hours nearly doubled from 531 in the first six months of last year to 958 in the second half of the year.

The report also shows a growing number of mentally ill patients are staying in emergency departments longer than eight hours because of hospital bed shortages.

Although Dr Hemley was unavailable for comment when contacted by DPSeNews yesterday, an Australian Medical Association spokesperson said Dr Hemley’s comments in The Age were based on the government’s hospital report.

Council on the Ageing (COTA) Victoria chief executive officer, Sue Hendy, told DPSeNews after reading The Age article, it is “easy to make sweeping statements, but it is a much more complex picture than that”.

Ms Hendy, who suggests The Age article is “probably lazy journalism”, says “the massive backlog is because, in actual fact, people quite often don’t need aged care”.

“What we found is that there is some contradiction in the system,” she says.

According to Ms Hendy, quite often elderly people do need medical attention at hospitals.

“Our last resort should be putting old people into aged care. Some people often have the preconceived notion that all old people need to go into aged care,” she says.

The shortage of GPs is another concern of Ms Hendy’s, who says if a person cannot see a GP, then they will most likely go to the emergency department.

“The lack of GPs probably doesn’t help,” she admits.

The “cross advice” given to elderly people is another concern which Ms Hendy says needs “a bit of work to see what is really going on”.

“Some patients are told to go home, some need to stay at hospitals and then some elderly people are told to go to an aged care facility. The cross advice makes it hard,” she says.

“While we know some people should go home, then there is the problem of no support services within the home.”

Ms Hendy claims the demand for low care is “not there”.

“Low care tends to not be as required because people are staying at home longer,” she says.

Proactive health promotion and pathways to physical activity is an important factor which Ms Hendy says will provide “potential solutions along the system”.

“Funding programs such as strength training, general physical activity and other health promotion activities is known to improve the health profile of older people and saves money down the stream,” she says.

“Other initiatives along the continuum are also value for money, not necessarily just aged care beds. We need to look at how the health system works and make it work effectively for older people.

“We shouldn’t discriminate against age. We need good attention and good services and then we will be able to understand what is really going on,” she says.

Council on the Ageing Australia chief executive officer, Ian Yates, echoes Ms Hendy’s concerns, saying “ageism is rife” in Australia.

“There is a lot of mythology of older people in hospitals,” Mr Yates tells DPSeNews.

He says hospital discharge officers quite often show “very little evidence of the well-being of older people”.

“What we actually need is much better planning for an appropriate post-hospital care environment,” Mr Yates says.

“Quite often hospitals just want to get [the elderly] out of hospitals and into aged care,” he says.

However, Aged and Community Care Victoria chief executive officer, Gerard Mansour, disagrees, suggesting the challenge is getting the “right beds at the right places”.

Mr Mansour says Victoria, in fact has one of the “worst” planning and vacancy rates in Australia”.

In what he calls a “mismatched syndrome”, Mr Mansour says as the ageing population shifts “it’s hard to get beds in the right places”.

He says a “solution” needs to be made in regard to the “aged care problem”, and encourages conversations within the family when it comes to sending a loved one to an aged care facility.

“We can’t have people being inappropriately left in hospital. This has been an issue of urgency for governments of the last decade. They know a problem is coming,” he says.

Do you think it is unfair to blame aged care facilities for the number of elderly people flocking to hospitals for medical attention? Or do you believe there is a shortage of aged care beds in the country? We’re interested to know what you think about this issue, so let us know by commenting below.