Providers should focus more on “early intervention”

The director of one of Australia’s largest aged care providers has applauded the Commonwealth Government for its proposed tax concessions for older workers.

Gillian McFee from UnitingCare Ageing said the government’s decision to encourage older people to remain active in the workplace was a positive step.

The government’s proposed $43.4 million tax package will include retraining intiatives and support for older workers with health issues.

Ms McFee said the aged care industry needed to be more proactive about positive ageing.

“For far too long too, we have had too much emphasis on the end-stage of ageing when people experience a crisis and care and can no longer be independent,” she said.

“The concept of early intervention is well established in other areas of community service, such as child protection, but in aged care it’s not given as much prominence.”

Ms McFee said UnitingCare Ageing runs men’s sheds and healthy ageing gyms with no external funding to encourage active ageing.

The organisation is also investigating how it can be involved in the government’s new package.

“I also think this issue is an important part of the wider principle of social inclusion,” Ms McFee said.

“People have been part of the community all their lives, yet for some reason we seem to segregate them into a group of people where what they share in common is their birth date.

“We need to think about ageing in a new way.”