Aged Care: The Sniff Test | When home is no longer safe| Club Sandwich
Trying to work out aged care in Australia before you are forced into it? This episode is your practical starting point. Sarah Macdonald and Linda Mellors break down how aged care works, what My Aged Care actually does, when to start, what home care packages mean, and how to make early decisions that can save families stress later.
Ageing parents? You’ve got them. We’ve got you.
In this episode
The Conversation: Sarah Macdonald and Linda Mellors unpack aged care in Australia, from My Aged Care and assessments to home care packages, aged care at home, and how families can start planning before crisis hits.
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Melissa Reader - CEO of Vera and expert on Australia’s ageing crisis.
Jo Lamble - Clinical psychologist specialising in guilt and family dynamics.
Dr Ginni Mansberg - GP and women’s health advocate who tells it straight.
Dr Stephanie Ward - Geriatrician helping you understand when old becomes a crisis.
Kerry Milligan - Gogglebox star bringing humour and honesty to the sandwich generation.
This episode was supported by Australian Unity, home health and care services. Proactive local care that helps your parents live well at home, less stress for them, less worry for you, and more time for the good stuff. Visit australianunity.com.au/clubsandwich.
Need more clarity at 3 AM? Vera gives you a structured 15-minute voice conversation to help you understand where your parent stands and what to do next. Discover more at vera.guide.
Sarah Macdonald - Host + Executive Producer
Melissa Reader - Commissioning Editor, Executive Producer + Clubber
Rachel Fountain - Executive Producer
Audio + video edits by Fountain Media Group
Thanks and kudos to Sean Wayland for our awesome theme music Club Sandwich - hear more from Sean at seanwayland.com
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Transcript
Club Sandwich is recorded on Gadigal Land, home of the EORA Nation. We pay our respects to elders past and present. Always was, always will be. Club Sandwich is brought to you by Australian Unity Home Health and Care, helping Australian families keep their parents well, independent and at home. For longer visit australianunity.com auclubsandwich. Hello, welcome to Club Sandwich. This is the podcast for you. If you once thought that pods were about dolphins or opening of some doors on the film, that was 2001 A Space Odyssey. Now. My name is Sarah McDonald and I grew up in a time we could go and see Star wars on our own. My mum is 92, my mother in law's 94. My dog is so old he can't reach his dog bowl anymore, so it's propped up on a box of wine. We talked recently about keeping your parent at home as long as possible. Well, today on the podcast, when they can't, when they do need to go into aged care. Now, this is a time that can be very stressful. There can be a lot of conflict around this time. There's a lot of fear about this, there's a lot of guilt about this. So to help us navigate this, we have a very special guest on the POD today. Her name is Linda Mellors and she is the Director of Ageing Australia, or one of them. She's also the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Regis Australia. Welcome, Linda.
Thanks very much, Sarah.
It's good to have you. Aged care is such a. Well, it's the boogeyman, isn't it? We've got to this stage where it's so feared and people talk about it like it is a terrifying thing they do.
And it's such a shame because the people who have direct experience of aged care actually have a much more favourable view of aged care than people outside the system. So we have got this issue around fear and fear of the unknown that is most of the time not borne out in reality. And I often say to people, once you see aged care, you can't unsee it.
What do you mean?
It's so aged care. The people in aged care are absolutely beautiful people. So the residents are endlessly fascinating. The people who work in aged care are genuinely salt of the earth people who just want to make somebody's day the best it can be for them. So when I first took over the aged care side of that business, it was just at the beginning of the Royal Commission and as somebody who'd been in hospitals for a long time, listening to the way that aged care was spoken about, and looking at the data that we were submitting at that time to the Royal Commission, there were so many mismatches for me and I found it. I found it really concerning and an area that I thought I could contribute to. So, as an example, you know, they talked about medication errors in aged care coming from a hospital perspective, I was looking at the same rate of medication errors, thinking we'd be doing cartwheels down the corridor if our medication error rate was that good. But on the aged care side, it was seen as being really bad. Then you move into Covid, where nurses in hospitals were up on pedestals at the same time as nurses in aged care were being demonised. So for me, I felt there was something I could contribute to that system. And then I also looked at it through a gender lens, where most of the people who are in aged care are women, most of the workforce are women, and it was a system that had not been given the attention or the funding or the advocacy that it deserved.
That's so interesting. We're going to talk to a woman who works in IT on the floor very soon. But what about dismay coming in during the Royal Commission? And if we go back to the fear, that's one of the reasons, like we did see some terrible things in that four corners of things that had happened in some places and people were being mistreated and that is terrifying for an old person to hear about and for a carer.
Absolutely. And I've. So I have. My parents and my in laws are all in their 80s and we have got health and cognitive issues presenting themselves. So we're also live in this conversation with our own families. Right. And there's nothing worse than thinking that your parent might not be treated as they should be treated. I think the Royal Commission rightfully exposed some terrible practices. The unfortunate thing about the Royal Commission was those stories were generalised to the entire sector. So the Royal Commission didn't show us the good, the bad, the average. It took those terrible stories and it generalised them. So for the people who worked in that system, you can imagine the distress for the people who worked in the system. And a lot of them left because it was so distressing for the people who were in the system. There were varied responses. So you had the cohort of older people who said, that's not my experience of this system. And then you had the cohort who said, but now I'm really worried about what's happening to my wife. And you had family saying, so, you know I used to believe it when the nurse would call me and say, mum's fallen over. Now I'm suspicious about what actually happened to Mum.
Yeah, I'm sure it had huge ramifications but I hope it made the system better in some ways. For instance, nurses in nursing homes and things like that.
So interesting. We already had nurses in nursing homes.
Did you have to. Did they have to have them before that though?
So you didn't have to have them 24 7.
Right.
I can tell you, every service I ever ran I made sure There were nurses 247 without being asked to or having it regulated. But the way it was presented was this doesn't happen anywhere now I can tell you good providers absolutely had nurses 24 7.
And I suppose that's the big thing, isn't it? If you are thinking about aged care and it looks like your parent needs to go into aged care and there's signals about that and I want to talk about them in just a moment. What should you look for in a good place? Like, you know, because you see fancy places with wine bars and cinemas and all this sort of stuff, but what's actually a good aged care place?
So there are some things that I do when I go into any aged care home. So the way it's kept on the outside is actually important because it tells you something about the pride in the place. So gardens are really, really important and they're usually important to residents as well. So I look at the gardens, I look at the cleanliness of the entrance when I go in, the greeting like, are there people who are looking at you, smiling at you, saying hello to you? I smell, I sniff. Can I smell anything? Can I sniff? Sn, you shouldn't be able to smell any horrible smells in aged care ever. So I do, I walk around sniffing. People think I'm a bit odd. I look to see the cleanliness. And the other thing I would always suggest to people, go at a busy time, don't ever be lured into come at a time when, you know, residents are having a nap, say after lunch, a lot of residents will have a nap.
Oh, I love a nap after lunch, same.
But I would go to busy time, I'd go to meal service time, have a look at the quality of the meals, see what the social environment is like and if you can go more
than once, yeah, drop in quite a bit and this is where respite is a very good thing. This is what happened with my mum and my mother in law. They had some health issues and had to go into respite. And I now think it's sort of the gateway drug for aged care, because they can go in, you can get funding for that for a couple of weeks and they can try before they buy and you can see what the place is like.
And it has been used very effectively, particularly when there's a real fear of going in. And it does mean that people can see what it's actually like, not what they think it's like. And I ask older people all the time, what did you think before you came into aged care? And is the experience what you expected? And nine times out of 10, they will say, it's so much better than I expected. If I had known it was like this, I'd have come in sooner. Because people often wait until there's some kind of a crisis before they come in. The issue with respite is the system is filling up, so the availability of respite, I think is likely to decrease. So, again, I just encourage people, get to know your local aged care home or homes well ahead of when you need them.
Right, yeah. Cause they're all filling up, aren't they? It's not just respite.
So I think our health minister said recently, Australia needs a new aged care home to open every three days. I can tell you that is not
happening every three days. We need a new aged care home.
Correct.
Oh, my God. There's one down the road from me. But it spent about two years building it. It certainly didn't take three days. We're not doing that, are we? So, I mean, I don't want this whole conversation to be academic, but it's going to be very hard to find beds in aged care homes in the future.
It is. So the system has largely filled up and you will hear in the media stories about people who are stranded in hospitals because there's not a place for them to go to after their acute stay. Occupancy across aged care has gone up significantly and of course, we have the baby boomers coming. So last year we needed about nine or 10,000 new beds, net new beds to open and we had less than 1,000.
Oh, my God.
The data is we need about 10,000 net. And again, I emphasise net, because you've got end of life homes that need to close as well. So 10,000 net new beds to open every year for the next 20 years.
OK, well, we're in a bit of trouble, aren't we? And that's part of the denial. And there's often a denial about the need to go into aged care but just going back to hospitals. Yeah, I've heard of people waiting up to 200 days in a hospital bed for an aged care place. And so this is having an implication for our hospital system. But how can you pre plan for aged care? Because usually it's a crisis that brings it on, it's a fall, an injury or something going wrong at home because people often won't go in before they think they absolutely need to. So most people are waiting until it's till they're really very, very, very high needs.
That's absolutely true. So I think the entry point there and the perhaps delaying your aged care, your residential aged care entry point is home care. So there's a new system called support at home which is not without its issues at the moment as well. So we have a new system, a new act, new standards that all came into being on the 1st of November and there are some early problems that there are lots of people working on to sort that out. But if you can give somebody really effective support at home then you might be able to to delay that entry into residential aged care. Remembering that most people never go into residential aged care. So the vast majority of older people do not need residential aged care.
Right, okay, that's interesting. What's the proportion?
So I think my memory tells me that overall it's 6% of people.
Well, it's only a small amount.
If you reach the age of being over 85 years of age then I think it heads up towards 50%.
Oh of course, yeah. And that's the thing. So the people going into aged care now are increasingly higher needs than the ones that used to. And I mean my parameter for it and what came down to with my mum and my mother in law was it's not safe for you at home anymore. We can get help in the day for you, but they can't be there 24 7. And either we were going to have to leave our family, my husband and I move in with them, or they were gonna have to go in. And I think that's the kind of line that it gets to where people go, ok, we can't do this anymore.
And you do hear about that. So I have friends today who take it in turns, the kids take it in turns to sleep the night at mum's place to make sure that she is safe overnight because they can't get
into aged care or they won't go.
Won't go.
Can you force them to go if they won't go? I mean if your whole family and system is falling apart.
I think it's really difficult to force somebody in. There are some times where it is the only option. And if somebody does have the power to make those decisions, then they can. But if you have somebody with good cognition and they say, I am not going in, you drag me out of here. It's very, very difficult. And nobody ever wants to be forcing a loved one in, but we're not very good at having the conversations and that fear of the unknown makes it really difficult.
Yeah. And that's why I think respite's so good. And this is a whole of family conversation and it can take quite a while and you have to have conversations with your doctor and all of those things. But I do think, and I want to get into the practicalities of what you do next in a moment, but I must say it is confronting. I get it. When I first walked in with my mum, your heart does sink. There's people with very high needs. And when you walk into my mum's place, these two gorgeous women who sit at the front, and they're sort of like the two old people in the Muppets, they sort of sit there and they commentate on everything. Waldorf and so. And they sort of sit there and commentate that everything goes on. And in the beginning I found that really confronting. And now I'm like, hello, ladies, how are you? So you've got to kind of shift your attitude and know these are people who need to be there. And there's just because someone can't interact in the normal way, you know. And that's why I do take my hat off to people like you who work in it, because it is confronting to see people like that. We don't see people in those stages of life. Often they're walled off from us. So it does take some getting used to, I think, for the carer and for. Of course, for the elderly person going in.
Absolutely it does. And it can be confronting. These are communities of people. And as you said before, people are going in later with more complex needs and there's a higher incidence of dementia. So you do have a full range of people, as you do in any community. The important thing is that you can find somebody or a group of people that you can form some kind of a relationship with. And what I see in aged care is that people find their people in aged care. So, you know, you always see the naughty group who are hilarious at the dinner tables. Absolutely. At the dinner tables and other places, there are always the people who are the welcoming Committee and I'm going to work out if you're okay to come in or not. Like you get the jokers, you know, you get all types of people say it is endlessly entertaining, but people are more frail, they are more frail and you can't get away from that. And part of it is we're an ageist society so rather than celebrating old age, we worry about it.
That's so true. And I have learned that it's a place of great love and affection and humour. The other person that there is in there, you forgot the flirt. There's one guy in there, I walk in and go, hello, how are you? And he goes, oh well, all the better for seeing you, sunshine of my life. And I reckon he says it to every woman who says a lot to him.
Absolutely. And can I tell you, I'm called a spring chicken every single time I walk into an age.
You walk in, don't you? It's good for your ego.
I had my 50th birthday in an aged care home and it was hilarious because, you know, I just turned 50 and they were like, only 50, baby,
let's have a party.
It's stifling.
That's so gorgeous, isn't it? Yeah. And there's a lot to it is confronting but I think you do get used to it and you've got to let go of some of your preconceptions and, and I guess it's sort of a mixture of a boarding school or, you know, any of those sort of institutions with your characters and all of those people and the staff that we work with in there are brilliant and they can often give you a real hug too if you, if you're struggling. I've found them enormously helpful for my
feelings and they are, and what's going on for me and they really think about the families, they really do. So what I see a lot of is families who've been under really significant pressure, often balancing those caring responsibilities with their own family responsibilities and their jobs. And what we can do as aged care providers is, is allow family members to go back to being family members rather than full time carers. There is emotion that goes with that, there can be guilt that goes with that. Once people get over those hurdles and the vast majority of people do, and of course we see it all the time so we know how to help people. But then you do have beautiful conversations that, that actually you can go back to being the partner or the daughter or the son, whatever it might be, and think about how you want to re establish that relationship at that level.
That is so true. That is so true. I was always rushed and running around for Mum and doing stuff, and now I can sit down with her, have a glass of Prosecco and have a chat.
How beautiful's that?
I've become her daughter again. And she. Yeah, she was calling me bossy for a while and that doesn't happen as much anymore. We can just sit and have a chat. And our relationship has drastically improved.
Absolutely.
Because I'm not sort of harried and upset and concerned and stressed and, you know, the resentment can be terrible and if you just can never find enough time and when you can actually visit and they're being looked after, you can be more present, but also you can sleep again. And when. You know the film we've been touring with called Careless, that's what Sue Thompson, the filmmaker, said. She said she just didn't sleep for years. She always had her phone on. And Joe Lambert, our psychologist, says that, you know, club sandwich people will always have their phone on. They never feel they can relax.
I do, I do have your phone beside the bed.
Absolutely constantly.
For one of the parents. Yeah, I do. The other thing that happens in aged care that is really unexpected for most people is the older person often regains some agency.
Agency and independence, yes. But everything's being done for them.
It is, but they get lots of choices and the aged care standards mean that everything needs to be personalised and it has to be the older person's choice. So sometimes as children, we can take over the choice making for our parents.
We just got back from five cities on the club sandwich tour and we spoke to hundreds and hundreds of sandwich generation people and you know what came up every single time? The midnight Google. You know the one, something happens with your mum or dad, you panic, you go down the rabbit hole and then you close the laptop and pretend it didn't happen. Australian Unity, Home health and care is what I wish every single one of these people had found. First, an actual human, a care partner whose job is to understand your parent, to build a plan around them and have a local team who knows them. Not a hotline, not a pamphlet, a real person, a plan and a neighbourhood of support. If you're still in the midnight Google phase, go to australianunity.com auclubsandwich before you can close that laptop and go to sleep. Some people feel they get more choice back even though they're in the institution.
They do, they do. And they make new friendships and you can have as much agency in aged care as you want.
Interesting. But here's the other thing. I think some people improve and some people do get worse because they're not having to cook for themselves and do all the things they used to. And so if they've got dementia, they may, you know, often go downhill. Their abilities in an aged care home. So what's the proportion of the other people who are like, oh, now physically, I'm helping someone shower me and look after me and not cook and clean, so I've actually got more energy. So how many people sort of improve and how many become more frail?
Yeah. So I don't have the proportions. But what I can tell you is there's an awful lot to be said for heating, cooling, proper care and proper nourishment. So there are always assumptions around aged care that there's insufficient food. We feed people six times a day.
I know.
So I actually get.
My mum's put on weight, so most residents not touch shaming. It's cool. She looks gorgeous.
Well, and actually for an older person, carrying a bit of extra weight is protective. You don't want to be skinny when you're old. You do want a little bit more padding than when you're younger. So the meals are all reviewed by dietitians. Older people need more protein than people of our age. So when you think about all of those requirements that when we're in habits over a lifetime.
Tea and toast for dinner every night.
Exactly. That's right. And actually making sure people do have morning tea and afternoon tea and supper because your appetite might decrease, which is why you need more meals more regularly during the day.
Yeah. So some people will get better. They don't have, you know, they're less risk of falling. They've got people helping them shower. They're getting better at it.
Absolutely.
But do some kind of adapt to the situation they're in and because they're not using their faculties as much, does it affect their dementia? Can they often make them worse?
So I don't see that. So I think if somebody has dementia and they're on a rapid decline pathway, then you are absolutely going to see that there are lots of.
Because they're declining anyway.
That's right. And that will happen regardless of where they are living. If you've got somebody with good cognition, there is nothing about the aged care environment that should take away from that. So there are lots of activities to support good cognition and families contribute to that a lot. All aged care homes have these angels called lifestyle workers who make sure that there are Activities for the breadth of people there. So for me I'd much rather be doing something with my brain that would be important to me. I am highly, highly allergic to anything that looks like craft. If somebody tried to make me do craft, like I'd rather do a puzzle or something.
Yeah, Scrabble. Yeah.
But you know then there are other people who live for craft and they're creative people, I'm not one of them. But making sure that there are lots of things for different people.
Yeah, yeah, no it is, it's social like that. They sometimes have dancing and bands at my mum's and we'll go along and have a bit of a sing along so you can all go and visit and do that. I want to get into the practicalities in just a moment but one more question. I mean what do you think in terms of settling a parent into aged care? How often should you visit to help them settle in and cause I do get upset sometimes when I go in. I think there's some people not being visited. It breaks my heart.
Well, I'll break your heart more then by telling you the actual statistic and this one did come out in the royal commission. 40% of people in aged care do not receive a visitor over the course of a year.
Wow. So because families have put them in so they don't have to deal with them and then don't even visit them.
So it can be families aren't close or they don't have family or families are fractured but. But there is an unreasonable proportion of people who actually don't have that family connection. What you see on a practical level is that all of those families who do visit a loved one in aged care, you watch them adopt the other people who don't get visitors and it's beautiful.
Yeah, no, I chat to quite a few of them. Like I've got my boyfriend who says I light up his life and. Yeah, you can.
And who doesn't need to hear that every day. Right. That is wonderful.
You can do your rounds and yeah, I think if you put. If your parents going into aged care, chat to some of the others as well because that's just always devastating. Yeah. Okay. I think what does your head in more than how confronting it is and having the conversation and convincing your mum or dad to go is the bureaucracy. So you mentioned the SSAs. The SSAs, which is the kind of single assessment system that's your first step. Now most people will have done that because they'll be getting their parent help at home, hopefully. How do you Upgrade that if they need to go into aged care and you're making that kind of decision.
So don't assume that most people do that for home care. There's an awful lot of people who need to go straight into the residential aged care system and they've had no exposure to supported home or home care and that's often at a sudden crisis point. So there's a major health event or a big fall, somebody's in hospital and they say, you're not safe to go
home and a social worker will come and help you with this bit. You need to talk to a social worker.
That's right. So I think all older people should just pop onto the My Aged Care website and all the kids of older people also should just pop onto that website. They've made lots of improvements to it. So it is getting better. However, it is still a very bureaucratic process and it takes time. So getting on early is the best thing that you can do. I know for my mother, I am the designated person who can operate in that environment for her, with her or she can do it herself. We've just been going through the same thing with my in laws and my husband went and helped navigate because often
the technology's a nightmare too. So you can call my aged care. That's your first.
You can, you can. So that single. A single assessment will then help determine what is the level of support that you need. And it might be support at home, it might be respite, it might be residential aged care, it might be a combination of those things. But I think the sooner you get into that system, the better, because of the waiting times and because it's much easier to make calm, sensible decisions when you're not in crisis mode.
So you get a code that says you have been assessed as needing aged care and you can activate that code whenever you want. Might be a year or two down the track.
That's right. You don't have to do anything at the time. But what we see a lot of is people who are in crisis, it's highly emotional and they haven't actually had those conversations as a family and they're having them under really heightened circumstances.
Yeah, that's exactly what we're trying to avoid with, you know, with these sort of conversations. So you'll get a number you ask to be assessed and you can say, is my parent, you know? Or if you're doing it together with them. Now, assessed for aged care, you'll need that number to book into a place. If you can find a bed and find an aged care home that you like, but then you have to do the RAD and the DIP and the DAP or the Valium or whatever it is like you. Right. Like this is what I think. So this stuff was tricky.
It's really hard.
Yeah. So can you just, I mean, without going into too much excruciating detail, what's a RAD and the DAP and that kind of thing. This is about how it's paid for once you've been assessed and found a good place.
That's right. So there are different components to the system, some of which are funded by government, some of which are co funded by government and the consumer, and some of which are solely funded by the consumer. And it depends on a person's means. The first thing to say is that we are very, very lucky in Australia that we have a very strong safety net. So people who have no means or low means can still access all of the same care and services as those who have means or high means. So it's really, really important. Don't be put off by the thought that you need to have lots of money. So it's an independent assessment system. So it's actually a government agency that determines how much you should pay, almost
fill out forms to show their income.
And almost everything in aged care is highly regulated and a lot of the fees are set and regulated by government, so they'll be the same between providers. So accommodation is where the RAD and the DAP come in. So a RAD is a refundable accommodation deposit and a DAP is a daily accommodation payment. In my brain, I like to think of it as buying or renting.
Okay.
The refundable accommodation deposit, the vast majority of that goes to the estate or the family. If the resident dies while they're in care, if. If the resident chooses to leave or move, it goes back to the resident, there is a small proportion that the provider keeps. It's 2% per annum, capped at five years.
So I didn't even know I'd done that. I'd signed that over.
Well, you may not have if your loved ones went in before the 1st of November, because it's all changed.
This is.
That's right. So these are the current systems.
That's the rad. And you still pay a DAP if you've paid a rad, don't you?
No, you do not. No, you don't. So if you've paid a complete rad, there is no dap. You can also choose to only pay by DAP or You can choose a combination and this is all at the choice of the resident. So the DAP is. It's a daily accommodation charge. Again, it's regulated how it's calculated and it's linked to the room price, which is also the rad. Okay. But it is complex. So that's the accommodation side. Then you've got your basic daily fee, which is pegged to 85% of the single aged care pension, so also regulated. And then you have your care funding. So the government provides care funding for all people. If you're of high means, you might be asked to make a contribution to that. But the bulk is still funded by government.
Right. But that contribution that you make is capped per year, isn't it?
It is. And it's also. You've got a lifetime cap as well. So there are lots and lots of consumer protections that are built into this system. Then some homes offer extra services, so that's called the higher everyday living fee. You can't agree to that before you move in. So you can find out about what's offered, but the provider cannot ask you to sign up to that before you go in. So you've got lots of choices around that as well. So things that are really popular. Hair and beauty. Always really popular. Wine. Wine or beer with lunch and dinner. Right. So the other fees fund standard care and services. You can go over and above that and you can choose whether you want those or not. And there's a fee if you do.
And they're the excursions as well, things like that. But these it is. I mean, that's the great thing about aged care. Everything's there. So then you no longer have to take them out to get their nails done. If it's one with that.
Absolutely. And hairdresser safer. Absolutely. What I would recommend always is get proper financial advice. Whether you pay by a RAD or a dab, it normally just depends on what you've got and how it's arranged. And the best thing for you will be different from the best thing for the next person.
And there's special advisors, isn't there in this, that you can get. Who are. There are. What are they called? Aged care.
The financial planners or advisors. Absolutely. Worth every penny because they will help you to understand what your options are and what is the best financial decision for you.
Yeah. A good thing to do, actually, because it is really complicated and if you've got a brain like me that you start reading it and my eyes just sort of swum and I didn't understand at all. I Think what I was. What I was signing, really, in the end, I mean, I'm sure it's fine, but it's really complicated. It does your head in. It is.
It's a complex system and the arrangements are complex and they've changed and they've changed. So if you are sitting there confused, you'd be joined by 99.9% of the population.
How do people who don't have a child do this? Like, what if someone's in hospital or unwell or needs to go into aged care and they don't have a child or a niece or a nephew or a friend to help them or a partner?
So the hospitals are very, very adept at picking up those people who might need some extra support from the social worker, and they can connect them with all kinds of different government services to make sure that they are supported with that transition.
Because it's just so complicated.
It is, yeah.
Well, it's a really interesting kind of insight from you to kind of find out what it's like from your perspective, because I think that fear that we talked about in the beginning, that I don't want to go, that's where I go to die. That's God's waiting room. It's understandable. But these are some of the language that we can use and some of the stories we can tell to allay that and the respite to help people go in. Because it's not the bogey mound, it's actually sometimes where someone has to go because they're just not safe at home.
And it also enables people to live those final years. So I know that people can think it is where I go to die, but actually it's where you go to live your final years. And that living. If you need to be in residential aged care, then that living in that environment is better than living in an environment that's not safe or can't accommodate you. So I think there's a lot to be said for the benefits of residential aged care for those who need it. Again, remembering that the majority will not need it. So there's a fear of something that most people will not actually experience. The other really interesting point, there's a lovely group who published something called the Catalyst Report. I call them lovely because I'm a nerd and they use real data. So it's just because I'm a nerd and they've got proper evidence base. But Kevin McCretten, who runs that group, so he surveys literally thousands and thousands of people every year on what they think about Aged care. And he runs comparison reports for those who have exposure to the system and those who don't. So those who don't have any exposure to the system, the majority would not rate Australia's aged care as being like, right at the top, but the majority of those who are in the system do. So I think that should be of great comfort to people that actually those who live in residential aged care and families with a loved one in residential aged care have a vastly more favourable view of what is provided than those who are looking from the outside. So we've got an image problem. I don't know if it's a marketing problem, but it's actually, it's much better than people think it is.
But here's the thing, Linda, it is the place where people do go at the end of their life and I'm imagining the only way out is through death. So can you actually die in the aged care place rather than hospital? Do they have the services to help you have a good death?
Absolutely they do. So this is where aged, aged care really comes into its own. So the care around the dying person is exceptional. Aged care is really well supported by palliative care professionals, by the hospitals, by the GPs, and aged care should be able to provide the care around somebody who is at end of life because
that is their home.
That's right. And most people, the vast majority of people, want to die at home. And for people in residential aged care, that is in the residential aged care home. So I'm a really big believer in a good death. You can have a good death, you can plan a good death and we need to talk about what people want more. But there's no need for people to be in pain or distress and having a good plan around that ahead of time really, really helps.
And you can have that with the aged care place.
You can, yes. So that is the conversation to have with your aged care home and with the general practitioner who services that home. Really important conversations around, what do you want and what don't you want? So if your heart stops beating, do you wish to be resuscitated? These are really, really important conversations and having them really helps you to plan for and achieve a good death. And that is also best for families. Families don't want to see pain and distress at end of life and we can all contribute to those healthy conversations around, what does a good death look like for you?
We might talk about that down the track on another episode. I think of club sandwich. Thank you so much for taking us inside the system. Today. Yes, get financial advice in terms of dealing with all that rad and dap and all that kind of stuff, because that is the bit when you're stressed and you're moving furniture and you're talking to your parent and you're negotiating the whole thing. The bureaucracy is the last thing you need to be confused about. So do get advice on that. Thank you so much for coming into Club Sandwich today.
Thanks so much, Sarah.
So please send this to anyone you know who is navigating the aged care system and thinking about having to help a parent do this transition. We hope that it'll be really helpful for them and for you as well. Send it to the siblings before a family meeting to really get everybody on the same page as well. Now we do want to hear from you@helloubsandwich.community. you can give us your questions, you can suggest topics that we do on the podcast, and you can also have a look at our Facebook page where you can comment as well, or our Instagram page too. And remember, you are not doing this alone. You are doing a great job. You've got them and we have got you. Talk to you soon. Club Sandwich is brought to you by Australian Unity Home Health and Care, helping Australian families keep their parents well, independent and at home for longer. Visit australianunity.com auclubsandwich Club Sandwich is brought to you by Vera
Sam.