r/news • u/GenericKittyKat • 21h ago
Dementia patients warned off seeking home care in case Australia’s aged care algorithm cuts funding
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/12/dementia-patients-warned-applying-algorithm-aged-care-funding85
u/Cats_tongue 16h ago
Yeah!
Make sure you're paying 500k (or the patients only asset: thier house) to put them in a home where the sales person tells you how cared for they will be but the reality is that there is 1 nurse and 3 AINs for 50 people a day.
The staff want to give these elderly people real care, but the time constraints, conditions and lack of support they receive from the nursing home owners mean that they need to systematically process your parents like cattle. Get up 6am, shower 5 mins, throw food in front of them, move on.
And don't worry, the kitchen staff serving those gourmet meals are the lowest paid people money can buy! Likely vegetarians that don't know how to cook meat and will accidentally serve a chicken dish raw once a month!
Source: my hubby was an aged care AIN for 6 years, he really cared. He learned old songs to sing to the residents because it made them happy and he did his best to give them time and dignity, but he had to get out because while he tried to give as much love and care as he could to these people, it was breaking him to not even have time to stop and talk to residents, because he was instructed by management to process the next person.
He got a screamed at, spat on, punched and more by the residents, but he never blamed them. They have so many medical conditions, including dementia. But the less then zero company support and thier clear "money is the only metric" way of business forced him to get out of that work, for his sanity.
31
u/Practical-Object9298 15h ago
Much respect to your husband. Thank you for sharing.
15
u/AtticusFinchsMom 10h ago
I just lost my Dad to dementia last month. The ladies that cared for him were just wonderful. The facility, not so much. (Owned by an equity firm)
Please thank your husband for his "service" I know that was a thankless job. Believe me, it was very much appreciated.
10
u/Budgiesmugglerlover2 11h ago
I did my placement for my AIN studies and that was enough for me. Aged care workers dont get the credit or pay they deserve.
6
u/Quiet_Classroom_2948 10h ago
That's an odd statement that vegetarians serve up raw meat
13
u/Cats_tongue 5h ago
It happened at least twice and once was more then enough.
The only reason I mentioned they were vegetarian is because the person whom was the cook at the time said "Oh, I didn't know what it's supposed to look like because I never cook chicken, I'm vegetarian."
Without that context I can see why you thought it was odd.
39
u/Monarc73 19h ago
Sure am glad to see that humans are still in control of the decision-making....
13
u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 19h ago
They are, it's just the aged care system that's determining it and not the assessors. I'm guessing it's to control costs better, but there's no AI behind it which is what the article kinda makes it sound like.
71
u/Daren_I 20h ago
Dementia patients warned off seeking home care in case Australia’s aged care algorithm cuts funding
They're not going to remember that.
50
u/TheWildTofuHunter 19h ago
As a person with a loved one who’s current battling dementia and it hurts my heart daily, I giggled.
She doesn’t even remember that I visit her daily, and an hour later will ask when I’m coming. 😞
20
u/kirbatiel 15h ago
My dad and his sisters have a roster so that my Grandma gets a visit every day, as she is 99, lives in a care home, and has Dementia that is progressing quite a bit.
She always says no one visits her when we go to see her, even though we do. It's really sad that she's somehow internalised that idea.
4
u/TheWildTofuHunter 13h ago
Aww that’s amazing. 😻 I’m so sorry for your family, as it’s heart-wrenching to have to continuously share that news. You have my total love.
1
u/Dramatic_Original_55 1h ago
Ok, your joke is dark, but sometimes you just gotta laugh to keep from crying. My dad would be finishing his last couple bites of lunch and ask why dinner is late being served. We chuckled. Don't hate us,
96
u/HeyRooster42 21h ago
So... this is how Skynet starts.
44
u/roguetrick 19h ago
Not that kind of algorithm. One where human assessments are converted into numbers based on rules. It's just Byzantine and also sets priorities for triage.
7
7
u/dietchaos 13h ago
This has been happening already in the us for years. No ai involved just times are changing. Nursing homes billed the vast majority of their care to post surgery rehab. Pretty much every aspect of their stay was highly billable as it was specialized and constant care. Surgery had become much less invasive and things that would require weeks in a nursing home people are being sent home that day now. Long term memory care barely keeps the lights on in these facilities and most of them are starting to get old and need extensive repairs. While home healthcare is cheaper for the government it's going to cripple the housing market as people will be living in their homes that much longer.
6
u/FormerlyGruntled 9h ago
Terminal diseases should be presented with open, humane ways of planned self-termination. And with dementia, at some point the patient loses the ability to choose for themselves.
3
u/Moonlightsiesta 9h ago
People think our Aussie health system is better than it is. In all honesty the US is much, much worse, sure, but ours still has a lot of problems. When they cut anything it's usually against disabled people, poor people, and seniors. You know, the people who need care the most.
-123
u/Stereo_Jungle_Child 21h ago
No, that's only something that would happen in the US. The rest of the world has the perfect healthcare system, remember? I'm sure they'd never let something like that happen.
28
61
30
u/HeavySpec1al 20h ago
that you think other places being as terrible to live as your own country counts as a win is tragic lmao
11
-5
u/MariaValkyrie 15h ago
The people most concerned about this will refuse to act, just like they do with every woe in their life.
3
u/spamattacker 11h ago
So are you not concerned, but acting? Neither acting, nor concerned?
Or someone concerned who would like to share how you're acting to change this?
Or do you care to elaborate on who you are describing.
104
u/roguetrick 19h ago
The end problem is if nobody wants to put the resources in the way of taxes to provide universal aged care or universal child care, this sort of shit happens. And there isn't a country in the world that really will commit to that because it was previously unpaid women's work and if you ever put an economic price tag on that particular externality it would look massive(20-40 percent of GDP). So we keep trying to push this stuff back towards families and low paid immigrant labor as much as possible while squeezing full employment at the same time. So you get the same crisis from the US, to China, to Aus. Whatever, nobody wants to pay for it. Carry on and watch birthrates crash and an elder crisis play out.