BY HOLLIE HUGHES
Following the recent accreditation loss of a nursing home in Waratah, there are calls for the quality of aged care health in the Hunter to be improved.
Despite our ageing population and an increased demand for services within aged care facilities, General Practitioner (GP) visits have fallen by 13 percent in the last three years.
Federal member for the Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon addressed Parliament on the matter this week, expressing that the quality of care within aged care facilities must be maintained to a high standard.
“There is surely no greater priority for the government then to take care of the elderly in our community.”
Mr Fitzgibbon also spoke on the need to increase health care accessibility for those within aged care facilities.
“We need to maintain the highest quality standard for our elderly and we need to ensure that they have ready and easy access to GP services.”
“We can’t invest too much in making sure that older Australians have a quality of life…The Government is making it increasingly hard for GP’s to make visits to facilities and those visits go to the very core of quality of life.”