Meals and Wheels services around the country are struggling to keep going as petrol prices continue to rise.

Although service providers are doing their best to absorb the increasing costs, volunteers are already bearing the burden in some cases.

The Manager of the Queensland Meals on Wheels Association, Debra Tape estimates that volunteer drivers are taking on fuel costs of up to $40 a week.

“A lot of the Meals on Wheels services in Queensland aren’t paying for the petrol anymore so some drivers are having to pay out of their own pockets,” she said.

While current volunteers are finding it harder to keep going, Ms Tape said the biggest challenge for services will be finding new drivers.

“The real issue will be felt more in the future because it is going to be very hard to find more volunteers with petrol prices the way they are.”

Her NSW counterpart, Les McDonald said the sharp rise in petrol in recent months comes on the back of existing difficulties in recruiting volunteers.

“It has been hard for us to find new volunteers for some time now in any case and this is just throwing in an additional problem that people didn’t need,” he said

Mr McDonald warned that if Home and Community Care (HACC) funding is not increased beyond current projections, some services will be forced to close down.

“If something is not done fairly soon about this, within 18 months to 2 years, we are going to start to see quite a number of Meals on Wheels services that are struggling to survive, particularly if petrol hits $2 a litre.”

In this year’s federal budget the government provided an extra $15 million over three years to the Volunteer Grants Program in response to a 40 per cent rise in petrol costs over the last five years.

The Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot said in a statement that this would take the volunteer grants to a total of $64 million.

But Debra Tape said the budget measure would not be sufficient.

“It’s a start I guess but it’s not going to go far for every single volunteer organisation in Australia. Just in Meals on Wheels alone, we have 73,000 volunteers nationally at the moment.”

At least one NSW service provider has already raised prices and it seems more will follow.

A member of the Meals Victoria network said: “Organisations that reimburse volunteers for petrol will have to absorb the costs, but are more than likely going to have to pass on the cost to consumers eventually.”

The problem is not just being felt in Australia either.

Last month the Meals on Wheels service in Victoria, Canada suspended meal deliveries indefinitely for the first time in 35 years because of rising petrol prices.

If high petrol prices are affecting your services, let us know about it at: editorial@australianageingagenda.com.au