Not impressed with Abbott's aged care promises

The policy has also come under fire from the Australian Medical Association (AMA).
AMA president Dr Andrew Pesce says while incentives to provide more aged care beds are a welcome move, they should not come at the cost of GP services.
"Not only is there no new funding for the provision of medical care to older Australians, the Coalition has committed to cut the $98.4 million promised by Labor in the May Budget to provide incentive payments for GPs to provide services in aged care homes," he said in a statement.
"This is a missed opportunity for the Coalition that has been compounded by taking away the only new funding that was available to improve access to medical care for older Australians, at a time of their life when their medical care needs are very high." [ABC News 2 August 2010]

The NSW North Coast is a prime destination for Australian east coast seachangers, treechangers and retirees. Which means that this region is starting to experience what will be an continuous extended aging band in its overall population demographics.

So it is more than a little disappointing that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is placing aging issues at the back of the funding queue once again:

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has warned the coalition's aged care policy will be limited by how much money is left in government coffers.....
"I want to caution people against expecting enormous dollars," Mr Abbott told reporters in Adelaide.

This disappointment is somewhat personal for North Coast Voices as most of our regular contributors are over sixty years of age and, quite frankly, in regional and rural areas the glue which often holds communities together is the commitment of now aging volunteers and community stalwarts.

Abbott's plan to bribe nursing home operators to use all their current bed allocations does not engender confidence and, in the face of a longstanding regional aged care services shortfall, promising $14 million for nursing home 'pets as therapy' is an ill-conceived pledge.

While his plan to shuffle older patients in stressed public hospitals to post-hospital care in stressed nursing homes is rendered risible by the fact that in regional areas any empty nursing home bed is a rare commodity.

His announced $935 million aged care package has no roll-out details and, is pitifully inadequate when the Aged Care Association is warning that Australia will need on average $2.5 billion each year for the next twenty years just to keep up with demand.

Given Abbott's stated intention to roll back the Labor Government's new mining tax while still reducing company tax and the fact that he is tossing around what seem to be unfunded promises in so many ministerial portfolios, this aged care election promise of 1 August 2009 does not appear to be achievable - until one realises that he intends to simply take money from other areas of the overstretched public heath system to fund this particular election 'sweetener'.