Aged care no place for penny-pinching

This is not an area in which the Government should be penny-pinching. It may also be that society needs to rethink how it takes care of the elderly... writes the Dominion Post in an editorial.

Unless you draw an unusual degree of comfort from Health Minister Tony Ryall's promises of funding increases to come, there is only one conclusion to draw from the latest report on the death of a rest home patient: pray that you do not end up frail, old, demented and in the care of strangers.

…Staffing levels at  the Dunblane Rest Home [the recent site of a fatality] met the requirements of the operators' contract with the Tairawhiti District Health Board, but there is no way of determining exactly what happened because Mrs Revell's fall was unobserved…

Chris Devonport, the Hastings coroner …has recommended the Health Ministry review rest home staffing levels and he endorsed a recommendation from Mr Evans that closed-circuit television cameras be installed in rest homes to monitor residents' movements.

His first recommendation makes eminent good sense; the second seems a Band-Aid solution….

Mr Ryall says aged care funding has been increased by 5 per cent this year and will increase further in the Budget. It needs to.

This is not an area in which the Government should be penny-pinching. It may also be that society needs to rethink how it takes care of the elderly. 

The Dominion Post Last updated 05:00 08/02/2010

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