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Industry bodies in Western Australia have warned that families and hospitals will be forced to bear the state’s aged care burden if residential licenses continue to be undersubscribed.
The state has experienced a shortfall in nursing home and hostel allocations in the past two aged care approvals round ACAR.
In the latest ACAR, only 519 of the 1,208 residential licences in WA were successfully allocated.
“Unless there is an investment in development of much needed new services to meet the future demand it may mean for many that their retirement will be spent providing and supporting homecare for their parents,” said the CEO of Aged Care Association Australia WA, Anne-Marie Archer.
Ms Archer said 4,299 extra beds were forecast for WA in the next two rounds but most providers would not be in a position to commit to further building.
“It is short-sighted to talk about record funding for today when the future provisions of aged care will not be developed for tomorrow,” Ms Archer said.
The CEO of Aged and Community Services Western Australia, Stephen Kobelke said the impact will be particularly felt in WA’s regional and remote communities.
“In the original allocation there were 190 bed licences listed for rural and remote WA but in the final wash up only 19 were allocated,” Mr Kobelke said.
“That is the second time they have been undersubscribed and in the last round there were no licences allocated in truly remote areas.”
He added that there are a number of WA providers who have licences from five years ago but have not yet commenced building work.
“And I would suggest that there is no intention to bring those beds on line at this point in time,” he said.
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