"Once in a generation" reforms are coming to aged care. The biggest change is that anyone receiving at-home care will have to pay for services deemed "non-clinical", so help with things like showering, cooking, and cleaning.
The new Support At Home program, which will be rolled out on November 1st, will call for "co-payments" from all older people for 'non clinical' services for home based care.
This includes older people on the full pension, which we know is already pegged below the poverty line. With increasing cost of living and medical care, it will make such basic life necessities like having a daily shower too expensive.
Interviewed on ABC's &:30 report, Beverly Baker, OWN NSW Chairperson and National President said "A shower is essential hygienic care. To ask people to choose between that and food is really an obscenity."