Hogan backs NHHRC findings
Professor Warren Hogan has repeated his call for reform at the launch of Advantaged Care’s new extra service facility in Sydney’s southwest.
Professor Hogan at the launch of Advantaged Care at Georges Manor.
Professor Warren Hogan has publicly endorsed the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s (NHHRC) recommendations for aged care.
The author of the 2004 ‘Review of pricing arrangements in aged care’ welcomed the commission’s call for a “strategic reappraisal” of Australia’s aged care policy in its interim report on Australia’s future health needs.
Professor Hogan said the NHHRC paper, along with last year’s report from the Productivity Commission, presents a compelling case for change in the current economic environment.
“More than ever the times call for intellectual and professional agility to explore effective alternative measures to secure better outcomes for users and governments from the aged care expenditure allocations,” he said.
Speaking at the launch of Advantaged Care’s new extra service Georges Manor facility in Sydney’s southwest, Professor Hogan again criticised the “discriminatory” ban on ordinary high care bonds.
“The distinction drawn between extra service high care where bonds may be sought, and ordinary high care where they may not, brings a remarkable discrimination,” Professor Hogan said in his speech.
“Those with substantial assets may “buy” their way into high care by offering substantial bonds.
“Those lacking substantial wealth – not concessional and assisted residents alone but including those of relatively modest wealth – are not able to offer anything to support the provision of services for them.”
The Georges Manor facility opened by Professor Hogan is a 144-place facility that provides offering low care, dementia care, high care and respite care. It features single rooms with ensuites and large common areas.
Advantaged Care opted to build an extra services home because the goal of the family business has been to raise the bar in accommodation and service levels, since it entered the market eight years ago.
“What prompted our entry into aged care was that my grandfather was placed into an aged care facility in 1996,” said Advantaged Care Director, Michael Kresner.
“Our background is in property and the accommodation offering was not what we had expected and not what we were comfortable with.
“So as an organisation we are really aiming to provide top-of-the range services and to keep improving the aged care market.”
But Mr Kresner conceded that conventional nursing homes were becoming increasingly expensive to build.
“You have to make the capital pay,” he said. “Certainly construction costs years have blown out in recent years.
“From the opening of our first facility five years ago to now, they have almost doubled so it’s a lot harder to make straight high care pay.”
Professor Hogan congratulated the board and management of Advantaged Care for on the new facility.
“This effort is all [the] more commendable for having been implemented in what has become the testing economic times now besetting the Australian economy and, inevitably, the congeniality of our society,” he said.
The group is currently working on a new project at Bondi Beach in Sydney’s East.
