Long Term Care Crisis

[The Atheist]

Keating saw this coming and set up superannuation in the 1980s. Costello (in just about his only decent act) created the Future Fund to pay public service pensions. It wasn’t exactly rocket science,

We were well ahead of you, with national super set up in the 1970s.

The fly in the ointment was the insane dwarf, Rob Muldoon, who cut it because he was so smart we'd never need it.

 

[novaphile]

It's almost like, stealing all the taxation revenue and giving it to billionaires, doesn't work...


Nah. That can't be it.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Here's the view of a former politician who's now the CEO of NZ's aged care association:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350322718/nz-not-ready-ageing-population-former-nz-first-minister

New Zealanders are getting older, but we are in no way prepared to handle it.

That’s the message from former Minister for Seniors, Tracey Martin, who is currently the chief executive of the Aged Care Association, and revealed that there wasn’t much of an appetite to sort the sector out when she was in charge.

“New Zealanders don’t like thinking about getting old, but that is our reality,” Martin told Stuff’s daily podcast, Newsable.

“When I was the Minister for Seniors, I would have to say that there wasn’t a collective view inside government to really address this problem.”

Parliament’s health select committee has launched an inquiry into the country’s aged care provision - including the sector’s capacity to support people with neurological disorders, like dementia.

“We cannot use the same model we’ve used in the past, which is to consider putting the majority of people who have dementia... into a care facility. We have to do something better inside our community as well,” Martin said.

“You have to fund this appropriately. You have to be realistic as a government and [acknowledge] these New Zealanders will need care.”

I don't normally do this but... that's it - the whole article. No facts or figures, just "we are in no way prepared to handle it" and "We cannot use the same model we’ve used in the past".

No wonder an inquiry has been launched - they haven't got a clue!

My father was put in a home because my stepmother wanted to steal his money - worked too. When she announced it (as he was about to leave hospital after getting pneumonia) my brother and I called a 'family meeting' where the doctors explained that it was better he go into a home now rather than when he really needed to because he would settle in better. Stepmother skipped town leaving me with bills for his care at $20,000 per month. Eventually the government paid as they promised, and after six months of visiting him every day he finally settled in.

Then stepmother came back and took him to a home in Tauranga (300km away from us) because she was earning interest on the $150,000 she loaned to her daughter and the government wanted some of it. From there she moved him to 2 more homes in the next 5 years, until he eventually died because they forgot to feed him. She pocketed all his spending money and the nurses were buying him clothes and stuff.

I agree, an inquiry into how dementia patients are being treated in retirement homes is well overdue.

Meanwhile, I know a lady who is 95 years old and still living at home alone but becoming too much for her daughter to handle. She has $200,000 in the bank and a house worth ~$500,000 but refuses to move to a retirement home.

Oh, and she got Covid but survived without even having to go to hospital! So that 'solution' isn't working either.