Age Concern Demands Action On Rest Home Needs

Age Concern Demands Action On 15 Rest Home And Home Support Key Needs

"Based on our expert knowledge of older New Zealanders, we have a list of 10 basic requirements of rest home care that are not being met, and 5 basic questions about home-based support cuts.

"Age Concern New Zealand is calling on the Minister for Senior Citizens and Minister of Health to take urgent action on these 15 basic lacks in their portfolios," Age Concern New Zealand national president Liz Baxendine said today.

Age Concern works with older people throughout New Zealand every day.

"We know the problems they face, whether they live in rest homes or they're struggling to remain in their own homes in our communities."

Mrs Baxendine has issued a list of ten basic requirements of rest home care that Age Concern says aren't being met adequately.

General rest home issues

1. A culture of caring and respect for everyone living and working in rest homes.

2. Staffing levels appear at times to be inadequate to meet the needs of residents in a timely and appropriate way. Staffing ratios need to be reviewed given the increased care needs of people living in rest homes today.

3. Assurances need to be given about staff qualifications, induction and training (for example even something as apparently basic as showering a person can involve pain, indignity and risk if done the wrong way).

4. More support for agencies working to prevent elder abuse within rest homes.

5. Ending the social isolation and chronic loneliness which some residents experience even in the midst of busy rest homes.

6. Quality services that maintain health and dignity (for example, some residents can't even be assured their teeth will be cleaned effectively).

7. Rest home proprietors must ensure that their pursuit of profit doesn't force managers to deprive residents of material essentials or the care they need. This is elder abuse.

8. Proprietors must be restrained from charging residents extra for 'luxuries' that are actually necessities, such as decent sized rooms with bathrooms.

9. Real increases in the pittance ($35.55 per week) that people living in rest homes get paid. This is totally insufficient to cover the real costs they have to pay (e.g. dentist bills, legal bills, books, gifts, pharmaceuticals, personal hygiene items). The $251.75 annual clothing allowance equals just $5/week. Not even enough to buy a pair of stockings!

10. Further expansion of the action already begun on spot audits and on providing usable consumer information to the public about rest home quality, safety, services and charges.

"We also need to know how the government is realising Minister Tony Ryall's priority of supporting people to remain in their own homes," says Liz Baxendine.

"Home-based care, including domestic assistance, personal cares and respite, is what helps keep people in their own homes for as long as possible, yet these services are being scaled back.

"I have 5 key questions for the Minister about home support issues:

1. People who have been properly assessed as needing domestic assistance are now being told they don’t qualify at all, or need less. How can this be?

2. After their care is cut, do you know how are they coping? How confident are you they are continuing to live in safety and dignity?

3. Are telephone assessments a valid way to review home care?

4. Is sufficient support being given to older people, some of them very frail, who think they've been wrongly assessed and are trying to get home-based care cuts reviewed?

5. What is happening to people who would have received this care in the past but now won't even be considered?"

The actions that Government needs to take to safeguard vulnerable older people are clear – what's needed is the will to act, Age Concern's Liz Baxendine says.

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