What an incredible situation ! A queue of five hundred and sixty people are waiting for over twelve weeks for admission to a nursing home bed - and these beds are vacant because the health service simply has insufficient facilities to assess each applicant !
" High care " nursing home beds are for those suffering dementia - and with Alzheimer disease reaching epidemic proportions the need is increasing.
Under the regime pertaining at present no admission to a nursing home is possible until the Northern Illawarra Aged Care Assessment Team ( ACAT ) has assessed the applicant and granted approval.
Unfortunately, there is no provision for relief if any of the assessing crew are on sick leave, taking annual holidays or long service leave. As a result, work time blows out - and those very vulnerable people on the waiting list - and those caring for them - are put at risk.
There is also a penalty suffered by the nursing home people. If a bed lays vacant for months it becomes a drain on their finances. No patient in that bed - no money coming in to allow a service upgrade and the provision of more beds for this ever expanding need.
How basic can the health problem get ? " Blind Freddy " can see that the only way to solve this problem is to throw more people at it - and surely that should be apparent to the health care people !
Just one more example of the bureaucracy being unable to see the wood - for the trees !
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