"We need a new direction": Dyson challenges Tehan on Wannon aged care issues

The May 3 federal election presents a significant opportunity to improve Wannon’s aged care resources and deliver much needed change. 

Local election candidates are promising to fight for the electorate’s fair share in parliament and ensure the region’s lack of funding and staff are addressed. Members of Wannon’s older population, along with their families and the staff at aged care facilities, are calling for reform and better support from government.

Still not good enough, seven years after royal commission

Despite years of government reform efforts since the 2018 Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, locals, aged care workers and advocacy groups say there is still a lack of space for older residents and a lack of availability for in-home care services for the residents still living independently.

Advocates say long wait times for in-home support and a growing strain on residential services means older people are being pushed into aged care homes sooner than necessary, in facilities away from their communities, even though the vast majority say they want to stay local.

A 2023 survey by National Seniors Australia found 45 percent of older Australians were dissatisfied with aged care options in their area, and nearly one in three said they struggled to access in-home care. 

The survey also found that rural and regional participants were far more likely to say services were hard to access, too slow or not suited to their needs.

And in 2024, the Labor government’s Aged Care Reform Roadmap acknowledged that “more work is needed to meet the needs of smaller and remote communities”.

“Really disappointing”: The impact in Terang

In Terang, the 2023 closure of the town’s main aged care facility, May Noonan, has left a sizable shortage of available aged care beds between Warrnambool and Colac. The loss of May Noonan’s 40 beds means the town now has 15 aged care places, forcing older residents to move away from their families and support networks.

The Terang Aged Care Future (TACF) committee is an advocacy group that came together after the loss of May Noonan, in the hope of bringing a solution to the town in order to help keep its aging population local. 

“We’re strong believers in people’s right to be able to age in their own community, and so we think it was really disappointing to lose those residential beds,” committee Chair, Chris O’Connor, told the Brolga this week.

“We’ve got an aging population and there’s only going to be further need for those beds, so we’re really keen to have that happen.”

O’Connor said aged care was a “huge expense” and that restoring the 40 beds created a logistical problem, as “60- to 90-bed facilities are really what is worthwhile these days, anything under that is really not economical”.

In October last year Wannon MP, Dan Tehan, told parliament supporting aged care was vitally important.

“Having good aged care providers in our country communities, in our country towns, is just so, so important because it means our residents can age where they’ve lived; it means we can provide employment through our aged care sector; and it means the community can visit their loved ones, the elderly, and they don’t have to travel to do it,” he said.

Last week National Party leader, David Littleproud, announced the Coalition’s Regional Australia Future Fund, which would deliver ongoing funding for regional, rural and remote Australia – including towards the dwindling aged care workforce. 

Speaking with the Brolga on Wednesday, Independent candidate for Wannon, Alex Dyson, said aged care was one of the major issues to emerge during his listening tour.

He said it was a crucial time for the federal government to step up and take on the recommendations from the aged care royal commission.

“We’ve seen that aged care is a lot like health care and childcare, in that Wannon is waiting to access those services, and when they are [delivered], they’re being cut back due to the prohibitive costs surrounding it,” he said.

“We need a different direction because the waitlists are getting longer, and the outcomes for people who are operating in this space are getting worse. You're struggling to get staff for aged care and to make sure that they’re taken care of, so we need a different direction.”

Dyson said local advocates like O’Connor and Terang Aged Care Future (TACF) offered unique solutions to address the aged care crisis in Wannon.

“The fact that there’s a one-size-fits-all thing that might work for the city, doesn’t necessarily work for the regions, because we want people to be able to access their aged care close to home, close to their family and friends,” he said.

While the group would like to see an expansion of the number of residential beds at the Terang Hospital to 30 or 40 over the next five years, TACF has been researching and developing a long-term plan to build a retirement village in town with capacity for up to 70 people.

O’Connor said TACF has a consultancy group and business plan, has identified viable land and is in the process of preparing contracts.

“One of the good things about that is that it would probably release 50 or 60 houses in Terang or nearby Corangamite Shire for young families and workers because there’s a real shortage there too at the moment,” he said.

To get the project shovel-ready and in a position to receive further grants and secure an operator for the retirement village, the group would need a grant of $300,000.

Interest shown, but the wait for election promises continues

O’Connor said Tehan and Dyson had shown interest in the project, which has partnered with Corangamite Shire Council, and received backing from other charitable organisations. Any election promises, he said, “would be wonderful”.

A local Terang aged care nurse who had been in the industry for 10 years told the Brolga the local hospital and Mount View aged care facility had turned to agency nurses and foreign nurses to address staff shortages. 

“They’re using that to increase the staffing both in the hospital and in Mount View; they’ve connected those two facilities, so often nurses will work on both services in the acute ward and in Mount View as well,” said the nurse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“The shortage of nurses around has certainly been helped by the agency nurses and the foreign nurses that come in. I don’t think they’d be managing at all without that, particularly the aged care sector.”

The nurse said when May Noonan closed the hospital already had its own waiting list, and the day-to-day operations at the facility were unaffected.

“In the acute facility there were less options for respite or aged care beds, or people waiting for that extra support as well, so that’s probably where we’ve seen it mostly - people sitting waiting in hospital for beds, unable to go home, or they haven’t got the support at home.”

The nurse said they knew of people who would have preferred to stay in Terang but had no choice but to travel to Warrnambool, Cobden or Camperdown, and that a retirement village in Terang would allow older residents to maintain their connection to the community. 

“A lot of them were born in the local area and have lived here all their lives and it’s pretty unfair for them to have to spend their last years somewhere else,” they said. 

“A lot of our in-home services could be increased; a lot of those services already run within the community. It might be easier for people to be able to get them if they’re in that kind of [retirement village] facility, to keep them out of aged care for as long as possible.”