Staying at home longer: they want to stay. But can they? | Club Sandwich
They want to stay home. The hard part is making that possible.
In this episode, Sarah Macdonald and Melissa Reader talk about one of the biggest questions families face: how do you help an ageing parent stay at home for as long as possible, without waiting for a fall, a hospital stay or a full-blown crisis? They cover the emotional pull of home, the practical reality of care, and the steps that matter most if you want to plan early instead of scrambling later.
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In this episode:
The Conversation:
Sarah Macdonald and Melissa Reader dive into what it really takes to help ageing parents stay at home longer, and how to start planning because “ageing happens slowly… until it doesn’t.”
🔧 This Week’s Hack:
Be there for the assessment, tell the truth, and make sure you’re registered as your parent’s support person.
💌 Listener Letter:
How do I help my parent stay in their own home without waiting for a crisis to make the decision for us?
🔥 Hot Mess Moment:
You don’t want to be in a hospital corridor at 2am discovering there’s a huge wait for care and no plan in place.
Meet the regular Clubbers:
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.
Topics covered in this episode:
staying at home, ageing in place, My Aged Care, aged care assessments, Support at Home, CHSP, home modifications, family planning, denial, care at home, older parents, sandwich generation
Club Sandwich is brought to you by Australian Unity. Visit AustralianUnity.com.au/homehealth
Credits
Club Sandwich is brought to you by Vera.guide, helping families caring for ageing parents navigate this stage of life so you don’t have to do it alone.
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
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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's Home Health and Care, helping Australian families support their parents to stay well, to stay active and living at home for longer. Welcome to Club Sandwich. Now, this is the podcast for you. If you are juggling lots of plates in the air and frequently dropping one or several of them, it's a podcast for you. If you're maybe sitting at a swimming carnival Googling my aged care. My name is Sarah McDonald, I have a 92 year old mum, a 94 year old mother in law and I think my 105-year-old dog Shaggy now has dementia. But that's a whole other topic. Today what I want to talk about is staying at home as long as possible. And this one has a bit of grief for me because we did move my mum out of her home about seven years ago. We had to. The roof was leaking, she was not safe. But at the same time I understand the connection to home. I understand why people want to stay there as long as possible and it seems to be what most people want. No one says, hey, put me into aged care, do they? So to chat about this today and to help you navigate this, to try and keep your parent or parents at home as long as possible, is Melissa Reeder. Now, Melissa is the CEO of Vera. She's in the sandwich herself and she was the host of the podcast the Birthed Club Sandwich. So we're sort of the aberrant child of agehood and she's here to help us navigate staying at home. Hi, Melissa.
Hi, Sarah. I suspect I would be maybe labelled the aberrant child with my family as well. So there you go.
Well, you're the mother of this podcast.
Thank you.
You can be the aberrant mother. Now, you have done a written guide to this. So if people are driving or in be, you don't feel you have to take notes.
Well, that's it. Don't run up the back of the Porsche in front of you on the M5 or anything like that. Listen, take what you can from the conversation. We're trying to make this easier and lighter for people. So we've put a lot of the detail in a field guide that you can download for free. We'll put those details in the show notes. It'll be easy for you, but don't feel like you've got to, you know, jot all this down.
Yeah, it's Complicated. And it's gonna get fun.
It's a little complicated.
We'll try and make it fun.
Yeah.
So staying at home, your home is your. You know what they say, it's your heart, it's your hearth, it means everything to you. It's where you've got those bizarre cat tapestries that your mum did in 70s or.
And those plants that you've been looking after for like 15 years and they're looking a little limp, but they're still kicking along.
That's right. It's where you might have had your kids, it's where you've lived and it's your community. And so it is very, very special and emotional for people, isn't it?
It is in terms of place, but it also is in terms of identity. Like, we know who we are when we're in our homes and the minute we're relocated, whether that is even into a retirement living scenario or residential care, there's so much loss of identity and that can be so destabilising for people and for their families and we'll talk
about that down the track. But this one is very much about staying in that home where they've been for a long time and how we can help them to do that, because it is what most people want. Like how many?
What's the proportion? 90% of us. 90% would say we want to be at home. Of course, like, that makes sense too, doesn't it? That's where the future of care is and it's bloody lucky that that's where most of us want to be, because frankly, we are going to hit 100% occupancy with residential aged care very, very soon. So there's going to be less choice in terms of people being able to move into residential aged care as the population ages. So let's do the best job we can at giving people as long at home as possible.
So the government wants you to stay
at home, the government wants you to stay home. The health insurers want you to stay at home. You probably want to stay at home. So what are we going to do as sandwich jenners to make that a little easier and a little bit more manageable?
The big problem with this often, though, I think, is that you've got to plan for it. If you wait too long, it's a disaster.
And planning is not just about finding a service provider. Like, there is a. A what, there is a where and there is a how. And you've got to get really specific about that really early. You gotta make sure, your siblings know that what, where and how as well. Cause what we see is just so much confusion, so much disagreement. Things come unhinged and people aren't clear on those things.
I'm already thinking about it like we're just getting new stairs to our house because the stairs were really narrow and dangerous. But I'm also thinking we'll sell it in a few years. Cause I do not want to get old in this house. It should go to a family. So I'm already thinking, where do I want to be old? Will my house be appropriate?
What are you thinking?
What do you feel? Well, I don't know where we're thinking yet, but I'm just thinking this is probably not it. So that's the other thing. Is the house suitable? Is a huge one. Can it be adapted for a parent to stay at home?
And they often, they're the big family homes that people have, you know, raised families in and that's why they feel this level of attachment and emotion. But it is near bloody impossible to continue to manage those homes as people age. And I'm having these conversations very gently with my own dad. I don't think he'd mind me mentioning that it's a five bedroom house, you know, we all grew up there. It was chaotic for decades, but now it's just him.
It's too big to clean and look after. And you could have someone in to care for you though I've suggested that to a couple of mum's friends.
And you have to make some modifications, you know, to plan for the period where the stairs are going to be too much for him. So how do we kind of think about that on the, on the phone
and you can get help for that, which we'll talk about later how you actually do that. But I suppose the other thing is that people will say, well, I want to stay at home, but I don't want to get help in the home because I don't want strangers in my home and I don't want different people in my home all the time. So how do you navigate this with a parent?
I think there are two paths here. And this is the beginning of the conversation to have with your parents and with your family. You, if you want to stay at home, you're going to have to accept help in the home. And just coordinating that is gonna be hard enough. You've just gotta be realistic about what is a pretty mobile workforce, you know. But let's not forget there's a lot of, you know, older women in that workforce. Who are getting incredible sources of employment. So let's look at it from both sides of the coin. First option, stay at home, Accept the help you're gonna need to stay at home or plan for residential care. There are two options. Some families will have brilliant alternatives to that and hooray, I'm the Granny Flap. Very proud and very pleased for them. But for the majority of us, it's those two choices.
Yeah, well, my granny lived with us until she couldn't. But it's not always possible, is it? And I think that that's really important. You kind of need to say, well, listen, it's one or the other. If you don't accept help, I don't see how you can stay here.
Tell me how it's gonna look.
Tell me, how are we gonna work this out?
Like, are you bringing the fairies in? Yeah, like, how's it gonna work?
Yeah. Am I gonna clone myself?
Gotta get really practical, really, like br. How and what and where. The thing is, Sarah, that when everything's going really well, or even when things are just changing slightly, people are like, oh, it's okay, it's okay. Mum's doing well, Dad's managing. But ageing happens slowly until it doesn't and then it happens really, really fast.
That's the problem, isn't it? It waits till a fall and they're in hospital.
Yeah.
And that's the issue. So what do you look out for? So you're watching out for the slow bits before that crunch.
You will know what those signs are if you're really honest with yourself. You know, you will see some increasing frailty. Maybe a parent that's cooking less or shopping less. That doesn't mean anything has to change today. But they're things to notice. The other thing is, what if one of the parents dies? You know, that's a huge shock and change for the whole family for that parent who's left behind. But as you said, there could be a fall, there could be a diagnosis, something that's a bit more escalated and my goodness, then you're in that hospital corridor at 2am and then you find out there's a nine month waiting list to get any care at home.
Yeah. Or they're just not, you know, they're setting off the fire alarm or things like that.
You know, leaving the gas on.
Yes.
Knives in the toaster.
Yes. Well, gosh, that would be hard to get help with those kind of things, wouldn't they, really? Like, that's. That's tricky.
It's tricky.
But given that we're focusing on. Yeah, getting that help to stay in the home. Let's look at what we need to do around that and we're gonna talk about the system. I think that as you said, you have to kind of say, look, it's either or. But often they'll say there is a bit of denial, isn't there? Like they minimise what's going on.
Maybe we all do a little bit. Cause it's hard, it's hard stuff to acknowledge and admit. But there is this game face that plays out and I think, you know, you see that in a family when everyone's maybe come together for dinner on a Sunday night and your parents can really, you know, they can manage that. They can perform to a certain level for half an hour or an hour. Doesn't look the same the following Monday afternoon. But that happens in assessments. So commonly because it's uncomfortable for people having strangers come in to ask them a bunch of questions and scrutinise the things they're able to do or not able to do. So people don't tell the truth. People say, nah, I can actually manage fine.
Yes, I'm doing really well, I'm great. No, I don't need help.
So first tip, guys, you know, 10, 15 minutes of discomfort is gonna save you six to nine months.
What do you mean 10 to 15 minutes of.
If you're having an assessment, you know, brief your parents first, help them get a little bit more comfortable with talking about the things that are really hard for them or find a gentle and diplomatic way to bring that into the conversation. Here's the things that I'm seeing might be a little bit hard for you, Mum or dad. It's important to raise those so don't blindside them. Cause it'll probably be really upsetting. Have the briefing beforehan bring the honest truth into the conversations. Even pump it up a little bit, you know, put a bit of urgency in that.
Cause if you're planning ahead, you don't know how they're going to be in six months time. Yeah, I think that we're gonna talk about how you get assessments in the sort of bureaucracy in a moment. But when they do get an assessment, I guess the biggest thing is you need to be there. This is one appointment you actually need to attend. Don't let them do it alone. It sounds really patronising.
Alone. Don't even do it over the phone. Be in the room if you can. And that's a very neat segue into another really important hint, Sarah, is as you go through all this, you've got to be recognised as their registered support person. Now, it's a real minefield to find that in the forms and the conversations. Find it, fill it out, get into that communication loop because otherwise this is what happened to me. My dad had his assessment, no one told me about it in the conversation. He got some gardening help and we're back to square one.
It's that pride and it's understandable and that independence. I don't want to be a drain on the system, but, yeah, if you can be there for the assessment, be there, be the registered support person and tell the reality of the truth. Of like, yeah, that's true, Mum, you are doing well. But remember that time you set off the fire alarm three weeks in a row and we had to pay 400 bucks for them to come and it feels.
You're finding the shower a little harder, aren't you? So I notice you're taking more baths or like just bring some practical examples, not designed to embarrass your parents, but to give the assessor some real light
on the situation, a true idea of what's actually really going on. Yeah. So your dad. Yes. Was like, no, no, I don't need help at all. For me, the key was saying to my dad, I need you to get this done so I can sleep at night. He'd do it for me. That was my. And it wasn't. It was sort of a tactic, but it was also real because I wasn't sleeping. But so when you've kind of got them to the point, hopefully where you've said, look, it's this or this, I want you to help you stay at home. I'm loving the photos of my 21st. You've still got up on the walls.
We love coming here, cutest babies.
We love coming here, all of that. We love the ducks going up your wall. We love the frangipani outside the kitchen. I used to actually sit in the frangipani outside my parents kitchen and talk to my imaginary friend Sulyga.
And that tree's still there.
Well, I took a cutting of that tree when they. When I had to move Mum, because now I'm growing that tree so Sullyka still has somewhere to go.
I love that.
Here's another story you can tell them. Actually, this happened to a friend of mine. Her mum got an assessment, faked it, said she was fantastic, did get a package and then said, I don't want it. And by not wanting it and refusing the care in the home, then when she did fall over a couple of times and get to the stage where she really needed help. She couldn't access it because she'd refused it.
I think that's an uncommon story.
Yeah. So that's a good thing to tell them as well. Like, I don't mean to alarm you, but this is the sort of thing
that might happen and it can be pretty incremental. You could just tap into some gardening or cleaning support just to get everyone feeling a little bit more familiar and comfortable with what that looks like. You know, some new services, some new people around and gosh, isn't it nice that we've got those things taken care of? You are in the system and it's. It's much easier to then escalate to other types of care that you need
up rather than get in the beginning. Okay, now, it's a bit of an aged care Alphabet soup, isn't it?
It's a bloody Scrabble.
Like it's. And so. But you need to get your head around all these acronyms. It's almost like a wrap. And I would love to wrap this with Grandmaster Flash, but I don't think YouTube will let me. So I'm not going to be Grandmaster Flash, but it's almost kind of like in my head I'm going to a C, A T, S A H, C, S, P C, H, P, D, V, A, C, M, F. It's like a jungle sometimes. Makes you wonder how you keep from going under. That was horrific. Absolutely terrible. My son would be like, mum, do not rap. But it's the aged care rap.
It is all these acronyms, an ocean of acronyms. And even when you understand the words behind the acronyms, they're totally bureaucratic.
Yeah.
They're not things that mean anything to us as regular people. So you forget them and you get confused.
You need to know them, don't you?
Yeah. And look again, this is all in the field guide and we've got a lot of articles on Vera guide about this, about decoding this Alphabet soup. So we'll go through it today, but if it doesn't quite stick, that's okay. We've got you.
Don't worry. We've got you. Okay. Something Melissa said today that I keep coming back to and that is that you don't want to wait for a crisis and have a family meeting when you're stressed and upse you want your care to be proactive. Australian Unity, Home and Health Care is built for exactly that when you can see that there is need coming. Australian Unity, Home and Healthcare can actually be proactive. A dedicated local team, a plan genuinely built around your parent support that grows with them. Before things get really, really hard, don't wait till you're in crisis. Visit australianunity.com au. Hello, clubbers. Do you want to hang out in real life? We are doing a bit of a roadshow. This is connected with a film called Careless by Sue Thompson. She'll come along, we'll talk about the film and getting her mum into care and the help she needed along the way and the difficulties of the whole conundrum that's at the heart of this. Other clubbers will be there in the room too. We're going to five cities. We're going to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra and Hobart. We'd love to see you in real life. The tickets are free. You can have a look in the show notes or go to clubsandwich.community or humanitix and come along. We'd love to see you share some bubbles of the alcoholic and non alcoholic variety and be in the room for club sandwich. I think the best place to start is my aged care. Correct.
That's the only place to start.
Right, okay. So my aged care, you get the number, you give them a call, you
give them a call, you can do some of it online. You'll get a call, right. There is a combination of filling out forms online and getting phone calls and
you have to do that if they don't, if they can't do online, because that's a whole other thing, technology. So my aged care and that looks at what kind of support they might need.
First of all, just sets up an assessment. So you've got to give them some initial information about why you're calling in the first place. They will tell you that they will call you back within maybe four to six weeks to book the assessment. So just prepare yourself for that.
So six weeks probably till you can even get an assessment.
Do you even get a phone call to book in the assessment? Not even get the assessment.
Oh, my God.
So we've got to be real and look, there are so many parts of this system which we can't influence. We know there's a lot of really serious concern out in families at the moment about some of these changes. And while we would want to overhaul so many parts of it, we simply can't and it's gonna take years to do and there are incredible people doing really good work on that. So let's focus today on the things that we can understand and make some parts of This a little bit easier.
Alright. So if they're a veteran, you can call dva. That's just why that was in the wrap.
That's right, that's right. And they can call. That's a fantastic pathway for anyone who is a veteran. So go straight to DVA. For everyone else, if you have a parent 65 or over and that's 50, if it's an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person, start with my aged care. NDIS is there for people under 65 with a long term disability. You will already know if you're in that system. But if your parent is 65 and over, you start with my aged care.
Right.
And you take a big deep breath.
And you take a big deep breath. Because the assessment that you will. They'll tell you when their assessment is and then they'll come round and do the assessment. Yeah, that we were just talking about where you need to be at and try and allow for the fact that your parent may perform really well in that and kind of, you know, exaggerate how fabulous they are, even though they are wonderful. We need notes for this one. It's so complicated. Seriously. The whole thing that was called an
acat, so that seems to be like a term that a lot of people remember. It's used really broadly. A lot of people are still using it even though it has a new name and particularly in hospital. So if you've got a parent coming out of hospital, they're probably going to talk about an acat.
That's the assessment, the acat, but now
it's called the sas. It's a sas, it's called the single assessment system. Isn't that a term you can hang
on to because you're sassy?
It's a SSAS process which is also like business software, so it's pretty bloody confusing. But if you hear ACAT and sas, it's the same thing. It's just the assessment process and it does take a bit of time. This is not like a 15 minute whip in, whip out scenario. So plan for that. Make sure mum or dad's got like cup of tea or coffee, maybe a cup of bickies. Everyone's hydrated and has got their blood sugar level up. Yeah, love it. Love a Kingston. Actually cup of tea and you're gonna get asked a lot of questions around mobility independence, frailty, some questions around cognition, just how is mum or dad doing in everyday life? So it does take some time.
Okay. So we want honesty in that. They come over and they do that. You've gotta Be prepared for their game face and then they decide whether you get that support at home or another program. So explain to us what the programs are after that when they decide what you may get for your parent.
So I'm just going to jump back into the bowl of Alphabet soup here. There are essentially two outcomes, okay, in terms of having care and support at home. The first is the Commonwealth Home Support Program. Chsp.
Ch. Oh my God.
It's terrible stuff that's been around for a long time and that's typically for lower level care. That's the gardening, the cleaning, the kind of, you know, lower level stuff. It's quicker to get. It's often hard to get service providers for CHSP in your area, but that's one of the options. The second option, and this is the new package and all the reform that came in at the end of last year, is called Support at home. And this is a really big and deliberate and really wonderful push by the government to provide support to help people stay in their homes for longer, given everything that we know around the number of people who need help. But support at home is for more complex needs. So that's where you're going to go if your parent is needing more care. Maybe clinical care in the home, maybe more personal care, showering, hygiene, dressing, those kinds of things. It's pretty complicated in the way that it's funded. I like to talk about it a bit like a phone plan. You know there's eight different plans, right?
Yes. Oh, is this the level they get assessed at your level one, you're level two.
Yeah. And obviously the funding levels are different and they correlate with the levels of need.
And the higher the level, think about it, the more care you'll get.
Think about it like a phone plan or an Internet plan. The more you pay, more you get. That's about as much as you'll really need to know. And again, that's all in the field guide. But it can take a while to get support at home. So you may well find yourself getting some CHSP support before you get support at home.
Right. The CHSP becomes before the sah. That's right, Sarah. Okay. No, I'm not wrapping anymore. It's terrible. So the money doesn't go to you, though, it goes to the providers and you have to find the provider. And isn't there a lot of concern around this now about the algorithm that's doing the assessment that they're using? People are getting cranky about this.
They really are. And at the same time, I can Appreciate why they're trying to bring more technology into this because they're trying to process people faster and some of the new technologies are really helpful. But there's some concerns. We've seen a lot in the media lately around just the wrong level of assessment being applied to some really critical situations. And my heart goes out to those
families that's so tough and people being downgraded and. Yeah. Being felt that the algorithm is not working.
That's right. But I would also add that we have to support things that are trying to speed things up. And that's the point of bringing more technology into some of these assessment processes
because it's so slow. People are like going into aged care or dying while they're waiting for a package to help them.
Yeah, that's right.
So what do you. Can you explain a little bit about what's fully government funded and what's the shared cost? Cause people get really confused about this and the shared cost is going up and people are struggling with this at the moment.
It is, it is so under those.
So it's sexy, isn't it? Are you turned on right now?
Has anyone fallen asleep at the wheel yet? I hope not. Maybe. Should we take a break? Get a Kingston and a cuppa.
You will need sugar.
You will need sugar. So under support at home, clinical care is 100% government funded. It's not means tested. And that's going to cover things like nursing care, wound care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry, speech therapy. So that is always free under support at home, no matter what your income means. Just so that's really reassuring. Personal care is where we have this shared cost and this very complex contributions concept and that's around showering or dressing or toileting or mobility support or medication assistance. And that's really important if your parent wants to stay at home because guess who's going to be doing those things. Sarah, if you're not getting help in the home to do it, it's going to be you and me.
You're going to be showering.
It's going to be the sandwich. Jenners. You know, I've never wanted.
She was like, you are never to shower me.
You can understand that
some families are fine with it and others are not. But that's something you can get help with. But they charge sort of 50 bucks or something sometimes a shower. So look out for the costs.
Look out for the costs, but know that the government pays the majority. The contributions are kind of scaled 5 to 50%, depending on your income. And your assets. So we have to be real about. That's the kind of care that people need if they want to age in their home. How are we going to make that happen? The other part of support at home is what's called everyday living. Meal prep, shopping support, social support, higher contributions. Government still pays a part of that, but again it's means tested and it can be anywhere between 20 and 80%.
Is that things like Meals on Wheels or.
Okay, that's right, that's right. So it is a bit complicated and I think that everyday living one is where people are feeling a bit of the change and a bit of the pain because maybe they had some of these services delivered for a lot less and that's hard.
Yeah, this is where we got around that by just delivering my mum meat pies and curries for quite a long time and she was living off that. Or we'd just cook double the amount and then take it round to her freezer for a long time. But then it's still a lot of work for you.
It's a lot of work for you. And you also can't have your mum eating like burnt toast. You know, we've got to make sure that you're well.
That was what, setting off the fire alarm or the burnt fire. But yeah, nutrition's important, those balanced meals as part of the package. That's right. So hopefully it's support at home and not suffer at home, which I have. I have seen some crazy wags calling it online with frustration on Facebook, but I understand it. There's also some other management fees on top of that too, which is.
Yeah, there's a care management fee that has to come out of the budget. It's 10%, you know, pays for all the coordination and admin. And that is. I get that that's a pain point, you know, it's. But again, that is not something we can change today. So we're just going to make people aware of it and, you know, help you understand how you can work with it.
There's also three new pathways and my head spinning about these.
Yeah, these are important.
Are these yellow brick roads for health?
These are really important because they're really specific. So I'll talk to them just briefly. So the first one is called the restorative care pathway and that's like an intensive short term therapy to help you regain your independence. And imagine if you've had some surgery, you've had a hospital stay. You just want to really do everything you can to get stronger, even after pneumonia or After a fall.
See, because often this is good because you can access this in hospital. A social worker could come and see you if they end up in hospital and try and be there when the social worker comes. Of course they come just when you're on the way or when you go to the toilet or when you go down to get some flowers. Ask about this, ask about that because they can help you.
Mum wants to go home. We want to look at the restorative care.
How can we make that happen?
How can we do that? Because we're trying to get her back to independence. That's the first one. The second one is the assistive technology and home modifications. I challenge you to say that as an acronym.
I put that in my wrap.
I'm not even going to go there. That's really to help you with equipment and modifications in the home. You know shower chairs or grab rails or ramps, toilet seat, toilet seats, stair lifts maybe. And it's got tiered funding and all of that. But these are really important terms to bring into your initial assessment. These are the things that you want to ask about.
Oh you can bring that up with the assessment.
Yeah. If you mum's having trouble showering then let's, you know, bring these terms up then. The last one is the end of life pathway and this is really important. And again just going back to that, 90% of people want to be at home. Most of us would say we'd actually prefer to die at home, you know, if we had the choice and we had the right services and supports. But one in two people die in hospital. So this is a part of the support at home program which is about supporting people in the last three months of life. That's often a little hard to determine but that aside, it's $25,000 over 12 weeks for clinical and non clinical services. You know, it's fast tracked approval and
my aged care can help you access your parents.
Absolutely. Really important. So that is specific funding to help someone die at home.
That's good. Yeah because as you said, a lot of people do want to die at home but then end up in hospital. It's another thing we'll probably talk about down the track. Yeah, look it all got so complicated with me. I got a friend to help me with my mum when she was living independently. But if you can access the system, if you're patient, you need to be prepared for this waiting list, the wait to get assessed, the wait then to access the providers, the wait til they can give you the help you need. And in the meantime, you're gonna be probably scrambling to get your parents some help. You are.
And you're probably gonna have a couple of your siblings saying, oh, I don't think that's necessary. I think Mum's doing fine. Do we need to. Can't we do that later?
Send them the siblings episode with Jo Lambeau.
Absolutely. And you know what? Do it anyway.
Do it anyway.
Get them registered. Become their registered support person. Get it in early. Cause that same sibling's probably gonna like, thank you. And maybe send you a voucher for a massage.
And also you can say, well, if they've heard that episode. But you can also say to your parents, let's start this now. Cause it takes years. And I reckon you might need this in a year or two now, hopefully it won't take that long, but it gets you into the system.
Start small.
Start small. And yeah. Cause you need to think big on this. If they refuse to get help at all, send them the episode that we're doing next week with Stephanie. Or perhaps you listen to that Dr. Stephanie Ward, the geriatrician. And we're gonna talk about denial and what can be going on. And she's going to help us with that. Yeah.
And you know, that type of denial can come out in terms of like a gruff and a fierce refusal. It can come out as emotion. It can be sadness. Try to have a little bit of empathy for all of the giving up that your parents are having to do around accepting this massive change in their lives.
That you're not giving up your home.
No. And you're making incremental changes over time.
Okay. All right. So, yeah, do listen to that one next week. Listen out to that. If you have got a parent who's really just refusing to acknowledge this. So we have notes for this in our cheat sheet.
We do.
We've got a field guide in our show. Notes. We'll take questions.
If there's things we've forgotten. Drop us a note, jump into the closed Facebook group, tell us the things that we might have talked about too quickly or particular questions that you have. Please don't get too upset with us about the algorithm because, you know, everyone's a little bit upset about that. But we can't fix that bit.
We can't fix that. We can only try and help you negotiate it. And yeah, because it's under reform, the CHSP is all becoming the SAH in the future. That's right.
Anyone on CHSP will absolutely move to support at home by. I think it's June 2027. But if you're in the CHSP and that's all you need right now, good for you. You can just listen and learn and know that that's a couple of years ahead.
You're on the path, you're on the yellow brick road to help. Well, the other thing you need to do through all this and through, yes, the frustration and the annoyance and the factor you'll be sitting on the phone a lot is, I reckon, take up
crochet, be your kinder self, do something
while you're crocheting or something like that.
Keep your blood sugar up, find a friend to vent about it with because there's lots of us going through this at the same time. Message us. But there are good people on the end of that phone trying to do
their best, be lovely to them, be kind. Yeah. You do walk into Centrelink and you see these signs up. Polite to staff. And you can understand why, because people get really frustrated in this. But don't take it out on them.
Don't take it out on them. They are doing their best. But my goodness, you know that some people are in real strife.
Yeah, that's right. It's really frustrating. And the other thing you need to do is do something for yourself. And I ask you that every week. What have you done for yourself this week? Clubbers can be very, very little thing. What have you done, Melissa?
Nothing yet this week, but I am going to hang out with some friends on the weekend up in the country, which is going to be really nice.
Lovely. Yeah. My mum hasn't been well this week, so I've been holding my breath a lot this week. But yeah, I've just been offered a last minute ticket to Womad and I'm thinking of doing it.
Thank you so much.
Calling my brother in to help on the weekend.
I think he should with Mumsy and
rocking out to Grace Jones, who's 77 and can still do the hula hoop. I can't. I couldn't do the hula hoop since I was about 12. So if you're listening to this, I've probably already gone and taken up hula hooping.
Respect to Grace Jones. Yeah, that'll be amazing.
Queen. I know that would be amazing. She is doing ageing incredibly well. So, clubbers, I hope this has helped. Please send this episode to a member of the family. If you think it'll help them negotiate with you over this and come to the same page, please share it with a friend who's really struggling with this and trying to keep their parent at home. Give us a rating, send us your questions and do something for yourself. And remember, as Dr. Stephanie says, you are doing a great job. And tune in to Club Sandwich. Save it in your podcast feed and remember, while you've got them, we've got you. Today's episode was brought to you by Australian Unity's Home Health and Care. This is proactive local care that will help your parents stay independent and at home, where they want to be for longer. Don't wait till you're in crisis. Visit australianunity.com au Homehealth Club sandwich is
proudly brought to you by Vera. I'm Melissa Reeder, co founder of Vera, and like so many of you, I'm navigating this season of Life with my own dad. He's 78 and I get it. It is hard. You don't want to overreact, but you don't want to miss something either. That's why we created Vera 75. It's a 15 minute conversation over the phone that helps you understand where your parent really is in their aging journey and what steps make sense next. It's thoughtful, it's practical, and you can do it at any time of the day or night, whenever it suits you, whenever you can catch a breath. Because you shouldn't have to figure this out alone. Visit Vera Guide.