Labor leader Anthony Albanese steps up aged care campaign in Tasmania
COMPLAINTS about Australia’s disgraced aged care sector have skyrocketed in the past year, new data shows.
Tasmania
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LABOR leader Anthony Albanese will use Tasmania as the launching pad for a campaign to demand immediate action on aged care.
Mr Albanese will travel to the state today to meet with Labor’s spokeswoman for ageing and seniors Julie Collins and will lobby the Government to take urgent measures.
He will visit the Evandale Market this morning.
It follows the release last week of an interim report from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which highlighted the failings of the system.
“There is not one part of Australia’s aged care system that isn’t impacted by crisis,” Mr Albanese said.
“While Labor is prepared to work constructively with the Government to progress long-term reform challenges in aged care, there is action the Government must take now.”
Ms Collins said 16,000 older Australians died in just one year waiting for home care, and older Australians could not afford to wait. There are more than 2000 older Tasmanians waiting to access a home care package, she said.
The launch of the campaign in Tasmania “underscores how important we know this issue is to people in this state’’, Ms Collins said.
Meanwhile, complaints about Australia’s disgraced aged care sector have skyrocketed in the past year, new data shows.
As the royal commission into aged care labelled the sector “cruel and harmful” the latest data from the sector’s safety body revealed a 35 per cent spike in the number of complaints about aged care.
In 2018-19, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission received 7828 complaints about the embattled sector, with more than 70 per cent of complaints made about residential care.
But the home care sector had the biggest jump in complaints with 1014 in 2017-18 rising to 1552 in 2018-19.
The latest figures from the independent Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission were released just days before a scathing interim report into aged care which described the aged care sector as “sad and shocking”.
The royal commissioners pointed to long waiting lists for home help and an “over-reliance” on chemical restraints for aged care residents as areas that needed to be addressed.
In June, there were 119,524 elderly Australians waiting for a home care packages, including 2115 in Tasmania.
Originally published as Labor leader Anthony Albanese steps up aged care campaign in Tasmania