With a nursing home scandal seeming to be splashed across the media every week, it’s timely that the Australian Law Reform Commission has just released its latest Discussion Paper for its Elder Abuse Inquiry.
It shows that Australia has one of the lowest rates of abuse in aged care in the world.
Can it be true?
Just 113 complaints of ‘abuse’
The Commission has been investigating ‘elder abuse’ for the last 10 months, receiving 210 submissions during this time.
The Aged Care Complaints Commissioner submitted that: “in the first six months of 2016, her office received just 113 complaints identifiable with the keyword ‘abuse’, representing two per cent of all complaints received by her office in that period.” (Page 202, Clause 11.45).
While this number should ideally be sitting at zero, it would seem that our aged care workers are among the world’s best when it comes to delivering quality aged care.
The Introduction of the Inquiry states:
“The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that the prevalence rate of elder abuse in high- or middle-income countries ranges from 2 per cent to 14 per cent.” (Page 15, Clause 1.1). That puts us firmly at the lower end for developed countries.
Caring for the frail and elderly can be a tough job, both physically and emotionally.
But with 190,000 residents looked after around the clock and 4.6 million hours of direct care logged every week, just 113 complaints of ‘abuse’ in six months, while not acceptable, shows just how dedicated our aged care workers are.
