New Centres To Cater For Elderly
The Age
Saturday August 26, 2000
CANBERRA
Fifty-four contact centres will be established in Australia to help the elderly and their relatives get information on nursing homes, home help and other care programs.
The centres, including nine in Victoria, will be backed by a 1800 telephone number and will cost the Federal Government $32.8million in the next three years.
Aged Care Minister Bronwyn Bishop said the program would simplify aged care services.
``The new centres will provide information on services available in the region, how to contact them, eligibility criteria, and information relating to fees associated with receiving services," she said.
They will also provide information on meals on wheels, home help services such as cleaning, mowing and maintenance and community care packages - funding which enables people to remain at home rather than in a nursing home.
But the Federal Opposition said the scheme was unveiled in the 1999-2000 budget and asked why it had not been implemented sooner.
The opposition's aged care spokesman, Chris Evans, said Mrs Bishop failed ``to get programs to assist older Australians up and running in good time".
The government hopes doctors, other health professionals, carers and aged care service providers would use the new services, as well as elderly people and their relatives.
The centres will be run by a range of groups such as church, welfare, healthcare groups, local councils and seniors' organisations. Each centre must have a shopfront and they are expected to be operating by the end of the year.
The scheme was welcomed by the Council on the Ageing and the Australian Medical Association.
Denys Correll, executive director of the Council on the Ageing, said elderly Australians went to an enormous number of sources in search of information on aged care services. ``There are about 60,000 admissions a year to residential care and most of them go in with poor quality and not independent information," he said.
The council will be involved in the running of several new centres. Mr Correll said staff would advise doctors and other health workers of the range of services available in the local community for the elderly.
© 2000 The Age