WA aged care bed shortfall announced

The future demand for aged care services in Western Asutralia (WA) will not be met; the ageing population will not a have their choice of residential facilities and will be forced to turn to the already congested state hospitals, according to Aged Care Association Australia WA chief executive officer, Anne-Marie Archer.

“The Federal Minister for Ageing has announced aged care bed allocations with a gross shortfall in the provision of beds in WA with only 519 of the 1,208 beds available being allocated,” she said.

“Unless there is an investment in development of much needed new services to meet the future demand it may mean for many that their retirement will be spent providing and supporting homecare for their parents,” Ms Archer said.

“This is the second round in a row that WA has suffered a shortfall in the allocations, surely the Federal Government must recognise that at this rate WA will not have the capacity to service its ageing population”.

Ms Archer said there are 4,299 beds forecast to be available in WA in the next two rounds; but we have no idea who will apply for them or can afford to build them.

“It is short-sighted to talk about record funding for today when the future provisions of aged care will not be developed for tomorrow,” Ms Archer said.

“Ageing Western Australians should not face a future of fending for themselves when they become frail and need care, but this situation will not be rectified without some serious capital, indexation and regulatory reform,” Ms Archer said.

Ms Archer said they had been warning Ministers for years that there would be a shortfall in future rounds – now it is a reality.

“If you have trouble accessing much needed residential aged care in your community you should tell your Federal MP as responsible long term planning and policy changes are needed to allow for new service provisions in the future,” Ms Archer said.