Page 4079 - Week 15 - Thursday, 17 December 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
on the Ageing argues, along with the Aged Services Association, that additional nursing home beds are required. Evidence to the committee, from both submissions and visits to facilities in the ACT, confirms this opinion. The committee felt strongly, Madam Speaker, that all possible pressure should be put on the Commonwealth Government to ensure that our bed quota formula adequately reflects these unique needs of the ACT.
In all, our committee has made 26 recommendations, covering a very broad range of subjects within our terms of reference. I cannot possibly refer to them all in this time, but I look forward to seeing the Government's response in due course. I have sought merely to highlight some of our findings. We on the committee believe the recommendations to be constructive and well based.
Madam Speaker, during the course of this inquiry many people, both individually and as representative groups, put a great deal of effort into both written submissions and appearances before the committee in public hearings. My sincere thanks go to all of them. Also, Madam Speaker, the committee visited a range of establishments that provide aged accommodation in the ACT. We visited Ridgecrest at Page, Calvary Hospital Nursing Home, Goodwin Villages at Ainslie and Farrer, Abbeyfield in Ainslie, Karingal Court in Narrabundah, Burrangirri in Rivett, Weston Creek Retirement Village in Fisher, The Grange at Deakin, Mirinjani Village, including the nursing home, at Weston, and Brindabella Gardens at Curtin. I name them all, Madam Speaker, as I wish to sincerely thank the management and staff in each case for the time and effort given to our committee during those visits.
Madam Speaker, this has been the first major inquiry of this Standing Committee on Social Policy. I have found it a pleasure working with my fellow committee members in a very bipartisan and constructive atmosphere. I would like my committee colleagues - Helen Szuty, Kate Carnell, Greg Cornwell and Ellnor Grassby - to accept my thanks for their approach to this inquiry. The committee secretary, Greg McIntosh, deserves special mention, particularly in regard to his assistance in drafting the report. His support staff, Vicki Salkin and Simon McGill, also played a valuable role, and my personal thanks go to each of them. Madam Speaker, I commend this report to the Assembly.
MRS CARNELL (11.55): I really do not know what I can say after that very comprehensive summing up of the report, but I would like to touch on one or two areas that I think were of particular importance. Ms Ellis indicated that a number of groups spoke about the problems of the asset rich but cash poor amongst our elderly people in our community. It is a phenomenon that I think we all see very regularly. It is certainly something that I see regularly, due to the area of Canberra that I live in. The houses there are not necessarily terribly palatial as there is a lot of government housing in the Narrabundah-Griffith-Red Hill area, but it is very difficult for elderly people in that area to sell their three-bedroom houses and be able to buy anything else even close to that area. I believe that a number of the recommendations that this committee has brought down will greatly help them to achieve that end, and I think that is a very important end.
I think the comments that are made in the report and the recommendation with regard to preventative health measures for those members of our elderly community who are not sick are very important. I am sure that everyone who has had anything to do with the elderly understands that we are not talking about just people in hostels or nursing homes. The vast percentage of our elderly are
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .