Sam Spiro from Mercy Care gave members and guests an outline of the services available for Home and Institutional care in Advanced Years
Sam Spiro from Mercy Care gave members and guests a very interesting overview of the Aged care situation in Australia. There are three broad areas in a complex system, namely Retirement Living, Home Care ( also called Community Aged Care) and Residential Aged Care. Sam briefly outlined the third option (Residential Aged Care) which applies to people who can't live at home and who need ongoing help with every day tasks. She then concentrated on Community Aged Care which enables a large number of people to continue to live in their own homes while receiving a great variety and quantity of services. There are many Service Providers in the Metro area and they can provide anything from low care (3 hours per week) through to high level care packages which in turn span four levels of care. It is important for people to research the available providers so that a compatible one can be selected when thneed arises. The focus should be on one's needs rather than on the financial aspects, and doing the homework is very important. Sam gave examples of a number of scenarios including likely waiting times for High Level Home Care packages. If a provider does not perform, Sam said "Make a change!".All in all it was a very enlightening presentation.