As the regional aged care system in New South Wales buckles under a lack of funding and increased demand, many elderly residents are being forced out of towns they’ve called home for their entire lives.
Arthur Dracopoulos’ 94-year-old mum, Helen, is one of these residents.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Helen was forced to move out of the only aged care home in the remote southern NSW town of Bombala, after aged care provider Southern Cross closed the facility earlier this year.
The closure meant Helen had to move from her hometown of nearly 60 years to an aged care home more than an hour away at Pambula.
Arthur’s wife, Dina, told the newspaper that the swift closure of the facility had a “devastating” impact on the families in Bombala.
“I can’t complain about the care, but she’s dying of loneliness,” Dina said. “It’s just devastating. They’ve literally been torn from their homes.”
A year before Bombala’s closure, Southern Cross also withdrew from Harden in the state’s west.
NSW Regional Health Minister, Bronnie Taylor, said the closures at Bombala and Harden pointed to a worsening health crisis in the bush.
The latest statistics from NSW Health show that in regional NSW hospitals 511 patients are waiting for either aged care or NDIS accommodation, while in the last year the number of elderly people on the waiting list for aged care places has tripled.
A spokesman for the Federal Minister Aged Care, Anika Wells, told The Daily Telegraph that the government is “determined to put care back into aged care, particularly in regional areas.”
Source: The Daily Telegraph.
