THE Federal Government has shunned a number of western suburbs aged care initiatives by redistributing funding for such projects to regional areas.
Member for Gellibrand Nicola Roxon intends to raise the matter in Parliament this Thursday (10 August).
The Footscray-based Australian Polish Community Services was one of five services that provide care to older people in the West, that missed out on Community Partners Program (CPP) funding.
The service’s CEO Elizabeth Drozd said they lobbied for the CPP funding for six years.
“But we had it for a mere 18 months,” she said.
The group used their former $60,000 grant to promote and facilitate greater access to aged care support services.
“Through the program we were working closely with the nursing homes and hostels where there are Polish people already and we were providing training and information sessions about the culture and appropriate care – these people have experienced war and the Holocaust, this experience sometimes comes back to them due to dementia,” she said.
A care worker employed by the service provides practical assistance as well.
“There was a man who had his glasses broken for several months and staff in the facility were not able to organise to get it fixed because they were saying he does not have money to pay for it,” she said.
“So we organised for an optometrist of Polish background to do it on a pro bono basis.”
Ms Roxon praised the organisation for the Polish language sessions they offered to nurses and staff at nursing homes such as the Ardeer Nursing Home, when she visited the home last Thursday.
“There were two Filipino girls and a Vietnamese woman and to see them talk about how they leant these key words in Polish and what a change it gave in the way they could support the Polish residents, was lovely to hear,” she said.
“They described how some of the difficult residents really calmed down when people spoke to them in their own language, even if it’s a phrase like ‘hang-on’, ‘move over here’ or ‘it’s time for dinner’.”
The Polish community has the second highest number of people aged 75 or older of ethnic groups in Australia, the Italian community has the higher number.
The Department of Health and Ageing said in a statement to Star that it understood the “disappointment” experienced by the Australian Polish Community Services at being unsuccessful “in a highly competitive funding round this year”.
“However, in reaching decisions it was important to ensure an equitable spread of funding to both metropolitan and regional Australia, and between community language groups.
“Older people in Geelong, Queenscliff and Gippsland areas of regional Victoria will benefit from funding under the Community Partners Program.”
Ms Roxon did not agree that such a distribution was equitable.
“I just don’t understand how that is logical, this funding is designed to be for people of ethnic backgrounds so why on earth would you not – if you wanted to distribute it fairly – why not distribute it to the regions where there are the most people of different ethnic backgrounds?” she said.
“That just seems crazy.”
Funding was also revoked for Footscray’s Spanish and Latin American Welfare group, while the Filipino Community Council of Victoria had their application for funding rejected.
The St Albans based Macedonian Community Council of Victoria also lost funding and the Parkville-based Maltese Welfare Association, which services the West, was also refused an application for funding.
The Department of Health and Ageing said there were other avenues of Commonwealth Government funding.
“The Australian Government also provides funding under the Partners in Culturally Appropriate Care Program to an agency in each state and territory to work collaboratively across the state with aged care providers, culturally and linguistically diverse communities and the Department of Health and Ageing so that the special needs of older people from these communities are identified and addressed.
“The Australian Government also takes special account of the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse communities when planning aged care allocations including through the Planning Advisory Committees in each state and territory.”
