Aged Care System in Crisis - where everyone suffers Our CEO, Leanne Groombridge, recently spoke to The Examiner Newspaper and said: 'The lack of home care packages and services is having shocking consequences on older Tasmanians, their loved ones and for hospitals and aged care facilities where there simply aren’t enough beds. It’s placing major strain on relationships, the heath of spouses and carers and it means that older Tasmanians are being left in hospitals where they’re further deconditioned or forced into residential aged care facilities very prematurely. This situation is creating a snowball effect where hospitals won’t release people home as the person either doesn’t have approval for a package or, if they do have a package, they can’t get the supports in as the services just aren’t there. We’re currently working with a client who wants to go home from hospital, but he can’t access in home supports. He and his wife who has cared for him until now desperately want to be together at home, but the hospital said he must move into an aged care home or they’ll place him on a guardianship order and get the public guardian to force him into residential aged care even though he is more than able to make his own decisions. They feel totally powerless and afraid. They’re devastated, and the hospital wants the bed. This is a client who could easily be at home with supports if they were funded and available. It’s breaking up relationships, creating bed block in hospitals and seriously impacting Tasmanians’ mental and physical health. Another current client was kept in hospital for over 7 weeks but had to be moved to an aged care home while waiting for a home care package. Imagine how her husband felt when she asked if he could provide her with enough pills to end it all as that was preferred to staying in the aged care home? It is beyond unacceptable that older Tasmanians and their loved ones must endure these circumstances. Our clients are telling us they’d rather end their life. They’re in total despair and feel like a burden to their loved ones. We’re also finding that there’s such demand for home care supports that providers have closed their books. One provider, Southern Cross Care, told us in July that they’re not taking new clients as they’re not sure how they'll go with the incoming changes which come into effect on 1 November. And we’re finding that other providers aren't accepting new clients either. There’s a chronic shortfall in providers and if you live outside the city areas services may be totally non-existent. To say it’s a complete system meltdown is not an overstatement and it's older Tasmanians and their families who're suffering the most.’ We’ve worked tirelessly protecting Tasmanians’ rights for over 35 years. We work for older people, people with disability or with mental health conditions and people using alcohol or drugs. If you’d like to chat to one of our advocates, please reach out to us. Our service is free, independent, and confidential: 1800 005 131 (free call) 0457 806 963 (text) contact@yoursaytas.org You can also send us an online referral at our website: www.advocacytasmania.org.au (fb)

Guardianship & Administration - a relic of our horrific institutional past that continues today Across Australia there are calls to remove guardianship & administration ‘gag’ provisions which is the subject of the SBS News article below. Uli Cartwright (pictured) has experienced first-hand how being on an order ‘strips you of your identity even more’. His story was not able to be told due to gag provisions but he ultimately won the right to tell it. Our CEO, Leanne Groombridge, was also interviewed for the article. While there’s no place in a modern, democratic society for these types of gag laws and the perverse harms they cause, there is still so much further to go. The whole underlying guardianship & administration system needs to be changed. This fragmented, inconsistent and outdated state-based approach is entirely out of sync with modern rights-based understandings of disability. We’re hanging onto a relic of our horrific institutional past instead of listening as people with disability tell us, again and again, that they want rights, choice, agency and support. It is past time we listen as a country, repeal these systems, and put our resources into properly supporting the will and preferences of people with disability. While Tasmanians can now freely consent to talking about their experiences, we’re still hearing far too many similar stories. Tasmanians are still being denied choice and agency in their own lives, under the guise of protecting them from harm. ‘Safety’ is still being used as a trump card to override people’s express decisions, choices and views about their own lives. The unfortunate reality is that the systems people with disability are forced to interact with and rely on, are obsessed with risk. People with disability are being held to a much higher standard than the rest of the community. You’d like to think that agency, dignity, autonomy and support are important, but get a whiff of ‘risk’, and then it just becomes lip service to those ideas. The system does what the system does, and people are left confused about why everyone is using empowering language that really doesn’t reflect their actions… which is protectionist control. Tasmania urgently need to replace guardianship & administration with a supported decision-making scheme to support people with disability to make their own choices and ensure those decisions can never be overridden in a way that other people’s decisions would not be. Support for decision-making has been at the heart of these reforms for decades, and implementing a scheme would take good ideas and transform them into something that people can enjoy within their own lives. It would give real dignity, choice and control back to people with disability and older people, who are still suffering and asking when anything will actually change for them. We’ve worked tirelessly protecting Tasmanians’ rights for over 35 years. We work for older people, people with disability or with mental health conditions and people using alcohol or drugs. If you’d like to chat to one of our advocates, please reach out to us. Our service is free, independent, and confidential: 1800 005 131 (free call) 0457 806 963 (text) contact@yoursaytas.org You can also send us an online referral at our website: www.advocacytasmania.org.au [Image Description: Photo of a seated man wearing a striped grey and white shirt and black jeans. Text: SBS.COM.AU For years, Uli could not legally share his experiences of being under state control. Now he can] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/why-uli-cartwright-wants-to-change-guardianship-gag-laws/103t7y1x8 (fb)