There were four in the bed
Desperate times call for desperate measures: Aged care CEOs resort to bed protest in a desperate effort to get their message heard.
A group of Western Australian aged care providers staged a successful tabloid-style stunt yesterday in a desperate bid to draw attention to the plight of aged care and the especially difficult situation facing providers in the West.
The event involved five CEOs representing 45 per cent of the non-profit aged care beds in Western Australia, including Ray Glickman from Amana Living, Vaughan Harding from Uniting Church Homes (UCH), Dr Lucy Morris from Baptistcare, David Fenwick from Amaroo and Wayne Belcher from Bethanie. It was staged in conjunction with Aged and Community Services Western Australia (ACSWA).
Billed as a ‘protest’ to highlight federal government apathy in the face the state’s critical shortfall of 2,500 aged care beds for elderly West Australians, the media was promised strong visual images: images of CEO’s pushing beds out of the entrance of an aged care facility and then sitting in bed together to conduct a media conference.
The ‘guerrilla-style’ tactics were successful in achieving an excellent media turn-out to the event though opinions differed on the ultimate impact of the message on Commonwealth ears.
Baptistcare CEO, Dr Lucy Morris said the government had selective hearing on aged care, adopting a risk management strategy with the whole industry and trading on the sector’s polite and patient approach to expressing their concerns.
“As long as you sit quietly in your chair and are suitably grateful for the handouts and don’t rattle the cage then it is OK. But it’s not OK.”
“They take advantage of the fact we are not for profit and we are driven by our passion and commitment and that we will do the best we can with whatever we have. But the Government is pushing us right up to the tipping point,” said Dr Morris. 
“The community would be rightly outraged if they were aware just how close to the line we are and it scares me to death that we will be pushed across the line and nobody will realise until it’s too late.”
An absolute insult
CEO of Uniting Church Homes, Vaughan Harding, said WA providers saw the event yesterday as the last opportunity before the election to communicate to the Western Australian community and the government, the desperate situation being faced by providers in the state.
“We are tired of the excuses for taking no action and a belief by government that all that needs to be done has been done.”
“Not enough has been done to address even the immediate desperate concerns, let alone create the building blocks for sustainable aged care into the future,” said Mr Harding.
Participants in the protest were receiving updates from colleagues attending the Grand Plan Aged Care debate in Melbourne which finished only moments before the WA event yesterday (see stories and video commentary on www.australianageingagenda.com.au) .
Western Australian protesters heard that Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot, told the audience at the debate that her government, if elected, would stand on its record on aged care.
“We heard the Minister made a last minute claim that they would ‘stand on our record’,”says Harding. “It’s an absolute insult. There is currently a shortage of 2,500 beds in WA. After the next approvals round there will be 3000. And that’s on top of the 1.7 per cent indexation. Providers here are very upset,” he said
ACSWA CEO, Stephen Kobelke agreed that the Minister’s record was “abysmal in Western Australia”.
“Let’s hope that we see some reform though the Productivity Commission,” he said. “WA was the first to be undersubscribed due to the resources boom originally. But the other states have followed, so we are not isolated.”
Kobelke said that despite being a conservative and caring service industry, there is a growing feeling Australia-wide that providers needed to ‘get out there more’.
“Today was a deliberate stunt to get some attention to the issues. These CEOs; the last thing they want to do is sit on beds and tell Western Australians that it’s bad news but we made a decision some time ago now, long before the change of leadership and the election being called, that we needed to become more aggressive,” said Kobelke.
Pictured: Left to right, Dr Lucy Morris, Vaughan Harding, Ray Glickman and Olive Wright. of Meath Care with Wayne Belcher behind Vaughan Harding.
