Calls for federal government to urgently improve access to home care packages as people die on wait list

Margaret Poulter’s late husband, Tony, had been assessed as eligible for a home care package a year before he died but was only approved when he had days left to live. WIDOW’S FIGHT FOR CHANGE >>>

Independent Clark MP Andrew Wilkie and widow Margaret Poulter are calling for greater access to home care packages. Picture: Supplied

A grieving widow has issued an emotional plea for the federal government to address the longstanding shortfall in home care packages after her husband died languishing on the waiting list last month.

Tasmanian Margaret Poulter said her late husband, Tony, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease and had experienced several bouts of cancer before dying in palliative care, was assessed as requiring the highest level of home care support in May last year.

But his package still hadn’t been approved 12 months later and Ms Poulter said she only learned that Tony’s home care support had been ticked off when he had mere days left to live.

She described the way the government had handled the matter as “disrespectful”.

The federal government is being urged to address the wait list for home care packages.

“I did swear a lot … because it felt so insulting that, on the one hand, this was a package intended to be able to keep Tony at home and he’d just been told he wouldn’t be going home,” Ms Poulter said on Tuesday.

There are currently about 80,000 people waiting for home care packages across Australia.

The packages are subsidised by the Commonwealth and can include help with household tasks, aids and equipment, minor home modifications, and clinical care.

Level four packages, reserved for people with the highest needs, can be worth up to $60,000.

If Tony’s home care package had been approved earlier, Ms Poulter said she and her husband’s quality of life would have been improved.

Under a suite of aged care reforms passed by the federal parliament in November, 83,000 home care packages were set to be delivered from July 1 this year.

However, it was announced last week that the implementation had been delayed until November in order to ensure a smoother rollout.

Independent Clark MP Andrew Wilkie was one of 10 crossbench MPs and senators to sign a joint letter to Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler and Aged Care and Seniors Minister Sam Rae last week, urging them to fund 20,000 new packages “at a minimum” to begin on July 1.

Minister for Health and Ageing Mark Butler holds a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Wilkie told reporters on Tuesday that the government’s treatment of the Poulters had been “cruel and it was also very selfish”.

“I would describe this system of capping the number of packages and the way they are allocated out … as cruel and penny-pinching, because there’s only one reason why there’s a shortage of packages, and it’s that governments don’t want to spend the money to pay for the number of packages that is needed,” he said.

Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler said the new home care packages were part of an “incredibly ambitious reform”.

“This brief deferral allows providers to train their staff and have conversations with their clients, get their IT systems ready and prepare operations for an orderly transition,” he said.

Originally published as Calls for federal government to urgently improve access to home care packages as people die on wait list