Last night’s 7.30 Report on ABC TV gave us a glimpse into the future of retirement villages (and land lease) when no home care and aged care beds are available, and it was grim.
Last week, I spoke of the fact that it is now a 12+ month wait to get a home care package, with 58,000 people on the waiting list. In some areas, like the Northern Beaches of Sydney, even when you get a Package, there are no workers to deliver them.
What was shocking in the 7.30 Report last night, which focused on the failing Star Rating system for aged care homes, was that they gave two case studies – one in QLD and one in VIC – where two sets of family found their mothers in the aged care home in such a state that they immediately were taken to hospital.
And here is the thing. While the program didn’t make any issue with it, both women had sepsis.
The Mayo Clinic defines sepsis as: ‘Sepsis is a serious condition in which the body responds improperly to an infection. The infection-fighting processes turn on the body, causing the organs to work poorly. Sepsis may progress to septic shock.’
Sepsis is life threatening and both women did indeed pass away within days (but it was not clarified as because of sepsis).
My point is that these two women’s care and health degenerated to the point they had undiagnosed sepsis in two separate aged care facilities, with perhaps 100 staff each.
That being the case, with the decline in home care availability, is this a window into the future of ageing people at home, including in a retirement village, when no staff are available?
Is the day approaching where every village should have a nurse visiting all residents?
Hospital in the Home
With no aged care or hospital beds being built, the only answer for these episodic health challenges is the Hospital in the Home movement. We have covered the leadership in this space by Australian Unity and Silverchain in our SATURDAY subscription magazine.
Both emphasise the base requirement of scale to be able to deliver the logistics.
Now we have Amplar Health, part of Medibank, emerging as a significant player, now with Bev Smith as a senior executive, being ex Australian Unity.
As Dale Fisher told us in SATURDAY, they can have a nurse delivering close to hospital care in a private home within 20 minutes.
Village operators should be inserting Hospital in the Home into strategy plans now, as again, resources are limited.
To help you come up to speed, Health Metrics and The Weekly SOURCE are staging a Breakfast in Melbourne with Russell Kennedy on Thursday. 29 August. See the invitation at the bottom of this newsletter. (Bev Smith and Verity Leith from Benetas are expanding on Hospital in the Home.) Numbers are limited but reach out.
Big money is being invested in this service, and at the moment it is the only light on the hill for older Australians that don’t have medical support on site.
(To give some insight into why older people present to hospital, check out the chart below, supplied by Bev Smith.)
