Aged care crisis looming, says Woy Woy CEO
The chief executive of a Woy Woy aged care home has expressed disappointment that aged care was absent from the Federal election campaign.
Mr Matt Downie of Blue Wave Living has foreshadowed an aged care crisis if there is not significant investment in aged care.
"Already, some areas in Australia are seeing elders in hospitals for extended periods due to a lack of residential aged care beds."
He said the issue would continue to grow and grow quite rapidly in a few years as Baby Boomers reached their 80s.
"Currently, we are building less than 1000 additional beds nationally.
"This is at historic low levels of development and growth due to the marginal or negative returns faced by the industry for many years now.
"In order to simply keep pace with the growth in the aging demographic, we need to be building around 12,000 additional beds nationally each year.
"This will never happen based on current returns across the industry, which then presents significant challenges for our acute hospitals, which will by default become a stopping point for elders who do require 24-hour care and support and cannot return to their own home.
"We are arguably already at a point where we will never be able to catch up to the near future demand.
"The longer this challenge is not addressed, the more significant and extended the crisis will become in just a few years.
"This is an issue that both the Federal and State governments need to address and work towards solutions with the industry.
"A nation where the general public cannot access a hospital bed when needed due to our hospitals being overfull, seems to be where we are currently heading.
"This should be a concern for all Australians," Mr Downie said.
SOURCE:
Newsletter, 1 May 2025
Matt Downie, Blue Wave Living