Staying at home affecting aged care operators
The manager of a Hervey Bay retirement village has sparked debate by saying that the popularity of home care for the elderly is making other parts of the aged care industry financially non-viable.
In their recently released report, The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed that, in the year to June 2007, about 56,000 people received Commonwealth-funded care in their own home.
The chief executive officer of Torbay Retirement Village, Philip Parry, says the trend towards older Australians staying at home, means many nursing homes are losing money because they have empty beds.
“We’re running vacancies in our low care areas which fluctuates between about two to about six vacant beds at any particular time,” he said.
“We’ve also discussed it with other providers and we’ve found that it is becoming more and more common that people are running vacancies in the low care section.”
