Aged care leaders across the country have distributed an open letter to the prime minister to draw attention to the shortfall in the sector’s funding.

The Aged Care Industry Council (ACIC) – made up of Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) and Aged Care Association Australia (ACAA) – decided to publish the letter because of the failure of successive federal governments to recognise the sector’s ongoing funding problems.

The letter was published in The Australian and the major News Limited metropolitan daily newspapers in each of the states.

“This year the increase in subsidies for aged care was only 1.7 per cent when the cost of living indicators have risen by 2.9 per cent, utilities in some states have gone up by as much as 10 per cent and the minimum wage has been lifted by 4.8 per cent,” the letter said.

“No one can make these numbers work, and older people are the losers.”

The CEO of ACSA said the recent indexation announcement had left people in the sector feeling “angry”.

“People were really outraged when they got news of the 1.7 per cent indexation,” he said.

“It was compounded by the fact that it came only weeks after the unions had been exhorting the minister to pay their staff more – it made people quite angry.

“We are quite supportive of the government’s intention to reform aged care through the Productivity Commission’s inquiry and we said that in the letter, but in the meantime, older people receiving services are the ones who will lose out.”

The CEO of Aged Care Association Australia (ACAA) Rod Young said the industry’s message remains the same, even though a new Prime Minister has been appointed.

“We congratulate Julia Gillard on her appointment,” he said. “We just hope the new prime minister will be a little more open to addressing some of the short term issues while we wait for the long term changes to occur.”

Click here to see the full text of the ACIC open letter.