Second Class Citizens !

It seems that the moment you become a resident in a nursing home you enter a strange government definition of your place in society.  In the bewildering lexicon of government terminology you are deemed to be no longer  "in the community  "!

In fact, you are lumped in with another group of people who also fit that description - those who a court has sentenced to serve a period of time in one of the country's prisons.   Both categories cease to be recognised as having access to key psychological treatment under Medicare rules.

Under this regulation, nursing home residents are barred from GP mental health treatment plans and associated psychological therapies provided to other Australians through the the Better Access  Medicare programme.  In many respects, they are treated as second class citizens.

It is estimated that about 82,000 of the 176,000 residents of nursing homes in Australia suffer from some form of mental illness, excluding Dementia., or suffer some form of mental distress.  The government seems to think that some form of depression is "natural "in old age and is looking at treatment costs as a funding issue.

It seems quite logical that any old person making the conversion from the lifestyle they have enjoyed to the care of a nursing home may need help in making that adjustment. If professional help is denied the nursing home authorities are forced to rely on the range of anti depressants available.  These bring with them the increased danger of falls and fractures that cognitive-behavioural therapy could ease.

It seems strange that it is government policy to do whatever is necessary to give support to the elderly to enable them to live longer in their own homes and ease the pressure on chronically short nursing home beds, and yet when that conversion becomes inevitable this support is withdrawn and taking care of mental health issues is placed entirely in the hands of nursing home staff.

There is also a connection between nursing homes and the shortage of hospital beds.  What is not available to nursing home patients because of this exclusion does become available when they are transferred to a hospital bed.   It is reasonable that patients with disruptive mental illnesses would be transferred to hospital to get treatment not available because of this anomaly.  Making mental health treatment available in nursing homes would probably help with the hospital bed shortages.

Pressure has been building for some time and the government has announced that "access to services through the Better Access initiative for residential aged care facilities will be considered in the coming ongoing Medicare review. "

If common sense has any bearing on that decision it should be a "no brainer ""  !