Doorstop, Launch of ARRCS with Natasha Griggs MP
FIFIELD:
It’s great to be in Darwin with Natasha Griggs at the commencement of a great new venture – Australian Regional and Remote Community Services. Today is a birth – it’s a new beginning. There have been some challenges with the provider Frontier, but full credit to the broader Uniting Church family for stepping into the breach and for assuming responsibility for a range of aged care facilities across the Northern Territory. I think we do have to acknowledge the incredible effort the Uniting Church has gone to, to make sure that there’s certainty for families and for people in aged care facilities. And I just want to acknowledge their incredible efforts, and also the advice and effort Natasha Griggs has put in to making sure that this new project – this new beginning – becomes a reality.
JOURNALIST:
Can you tell us about this $5 million? What will it go towards?
FIFIELD:
The Commonwealth has given $5 million to the organisation to assist the transition, which will support not only the transfer of people from the previous Tracey Aged Care facility, but also for additional work that the organisation needs to undertake to make sure that the new organisation gets a proper start.
JOURNALIST:
And is it your understanding that this amount of money is enough for the Territory to sustain our ageing population at the present time?
FIFIELD:
Well there’s good news – I’ve recently opened the 2014 Aged Care Approval Round, which will provide the Northern Territory with 54 additional residential care places and an additional 25 home care places. Also as part of the Aged Care Approval Round, nation-wide there’s $103 million for capital funding for rural, regional and special needs. And the Northern Territory will be a beneficiary of that as well.
JOURNALIST:
This money that’s gone to moving people from Tracey Aged Care – that money could have been used to get people off the waiting list which hasn’t changed. But effectively that money has only allowed the Uniting Church to be able to potentially realise its commercial dream of selling Tracey Aged Care. Is that fair, that that’s the way the money is being used?
FIFIELD:
I think it’s important to families of people who are in aged care, and the residents in aged care themselves, to have certainty when the facility that they’re in and the organisation that’s supporting them is no longer viable. So a commercial decision was taken to close that facility, and the Commonwealth thought that it was important to support an organisation that was stepping in – that wasn’t responsible for the situation, but was stepping in to create a solution. We thought it was important to support that organisation.
JOURNALIST:
But that money was used for a commercial decision, whereas that money could have been used to open up more beds.
FIFIELD:
There will be more beds, courtesy of the Aged Care Approval Round which was recently opened, which will provide additional places in the Northern Territory.
JOURNALIST:
Have you had discussions with the Uniting Church about what they’re going to do with Tracey Aged Care?
FIFIELD:
The Uniting Church has had a number of discussions with the Commonwealth Department of Social Services, and I’m sure in my discussions with the Uniting Church today they’ll give me an update.
JOURNALIST:
When will the new beds be available? When can we start seeing this waiting list, which has been described by the Health Minister here as a crisis, when we are going to see that start to drop?
FIFIELD:
The Commonwealth isn’t a provider of aged care services. The Commonwealth is a funder of aged care services. The Commonwealth makes places available, and providers endeavour to meet the demand that there is. There can be a range of reasons why there might be people in a waiting list situation in a hospital. But we’re ultimately a funder, and providers are there to try to match the places with demand.
JOURNALIST:
So the new beds that you speak of, when could they foreseeably be filled by people on the waiting list?
FIFIELD:
The Aged Care Round will be completed later in the year, so it would be some time next year.
JOURNALIST:
So some time next year that money will go, and then presumably there’d have to be construction or refurbishments, so hypothetically it could still be quite a long time until we can start seeing a dent in this aged care waiting list?
FIFIELD:
It’s difficult to say when particular aged care places will come online. It depends on the organisations that are successful and what their current situation is.
GRIGGS:
The good news is though, that the Northern Territory has the opportunity to get some new aged care beds in which they didn’t have previously.
JOURNALIST:
The federal watchdog for aged care services has in recent years issued several sanctions on Top End providers. Does that concern you? And do you feel that things have changed at all – that it won’t happen again?
FIFIELD:
I think when organisations receive a sanction, that’s an indication that the aged care accreditation system is working. That they’re doing their job. That they’re identifying problems, and that they’re providing advice and support to aged care providers to make sure that they get back into compliance. And from what I’ve been advised, there aren’t currently any sanctions on the providers that I’ve been looking at. So I think things are improving.
JOURNALIST:
There’s one case, where someone had been waiting in the Royal Darwin Hospital for 500 days on the waiting list for a bed. For all we know that person might still be in there. How is that possible that someone could be waiting in hospital for an aged care place?
FIFIELD:
It’s very difficult to say without knowing the circumstances of an individual as to why they’re in a situation. There can be many reasons such as an available aged care places not being where the individual wants to be located. There can be a range of reasons but it’s very hard to say without knowing their specific circumstances.
GRIGGS:
I just want to say that it’s great that the Assistant Minister is here today. I’ve been speaking to him on a number of occasions about the aged care situation here in the Northern Territory. And it’s great that we’ve been able to launch the service today, and to finally put together our commitment that we said back in March – that we would ensure that all places for people in Tracey Aged Care would be relocated. And that’s what we’ve done. And we’re delighted that there’s a new provider here that’s got an excellent reputation across Australia, and we’re looking forward to them doing some great work here in the Territory.