The Federal Government has begun building a workforce to help ensure First Nations elders and their loved ones gain access to the aged care services that meet their physical and cultural needs.
The Elder Care Support program will involve recruiting and training a skilled workforce of around 250 to ensure older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their families are supported to understand, navigate and access the aged care services they are entitled to.
The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) has been put in control of the program and intends to roll it out in phases over a three-year period. Phase one of the program is already underway.
NACCHO said the program aims to help reduce barriers across the aged care journey to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accessing aged care services and increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people receiving care.
It also hopes to increase real-time intelligence on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s needs and experience in aged care and increase clinical and non-clinical employment and career opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in aged care.
How much?
The program comes on top of a decision by the Federal Government to commit almost $200 million in funding to address cancer rates in Indigenous communities.
In welcoming the decision, NACCHO chair Donnella Mills said the funding would help address the imbalance that shows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples receive less cancer treatment and poorer quality of treatment than other Australians.
She said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous people to be diagnosed with many cancers, including liver, cervical and lung cancers.
Mortality Rates
“The avoidable mortality rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is over three times that of other Australians and the mortality gap between the two populations continues to widen. This demonstrates the work to improve prevention and care in Australia over the past two decades has had very little impact on our communities.”
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