A person offers support, holding the hand of an elderly person. Photo: Unsplash/ Ina Ramos
It's hoped a Ministerial Advisory Group on aged care can get all the players in the same room to thrash out an answer on how to best deal with a tsunami of aging people
The aged care sector has been crying out for help for decades.
In the face of a rapidly aging population, it's trying to prepare for a tsunami of need.
But those organisations dealing with healthcare, palliative care, and other increased needs of being elderly are siloed - rarely in the same room at the same time.
Associate health minister Casey Costello says our aged care model is out of date, and piecemeal change isn't the solution - so she and Health Minister Simeon Brown have set up a Ministerial Advisory Group to look at how we fix it.
There have been seemingly endless reports on what's wrong with the sector, including understaffing, pay and conditions, and failing infrastructure.
"We don't need another report to tell us what's wrong," says Tracey Martin, the chief executive of the New Zealand Aged Care Association.
"I've got a minimum of five of them sitting on my desk."
Martin was the NZ First Minister for Seniors between 2017 and 2020. Her knowledge of how the political wheels turn has been a big advantage in her new role, where for the last 18 months she's been talking to politicians of all stripes about the lack of cohesion in the sector. She welcomes Tuesday's announcement, describing the method of using a Ministerial Advisory Group under a tight time frame (reporting back by mid-next year) as "an interesting way of getting things done".
"What this shows is the ministers have taken back control of the planning for the future around aged care. So they've taken it back from Te Whatu Ora, who's been doing a review of funding and delivery for three years.
"This is also the first time that ministers, for at least a decade that I'm aware of, have brought together experts from the front line of those providing aged care - both in-home care and residential care - and said to them, 'how would you fix it? What would the future look like? How do we get rid of some of the bureaucracy and regulation? What would you recommend?'
"We're kind of pumped about this really."
Martin says Te Whatu Ora's work was very much focused from a top-down perspective.
"So, their goal was to remove pressures from hospitals, which is everybody's goal. But they were designing it [as] 'so this is what hospitals need', and we'll just push it downwards."
She says hopefully now solutions can be designed by those who are actually practically on the frontlines.
Martin believes that the issues in aged care have now got traction and broad bi-partisan agreement after some myth-busting over what's really happening. She hopes that the result of the Advisory Group will carry over to future governments.
"We need solutions," she says.
"They need to go to Cabinet ... and at some stage, somebody's going to have to pony up with money."
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