In the spirit of supporting young people living in nursing homes, the National Alliance runs a number of public education programs to raise awareness about their needs and concerns.

These programs include speaking events, conferences and presentions, targeting different communities including the general public, aged, disability and support groups, carers and families groups and youth.

The Issue

Every day, a young person with high or complex care needs is placed in an aged care facility somewhere in Australia because the accommodation and support they need does not exist. Some of these individuals are younger than 10 years of age.

These young people have a variety of acquired disabilities. Many have sustained catastrophic injuries in situations where compensation is not available. Some have developed degenerative neurological diseases, like MS, Muscular Dystrophy or Parkinson’s disease.

The Young People In Nursing Homes National Alliance does not believe aged care settings are an appropriate option for younger people with disabilities. Yet they are often the only option available to young people with high or complex support needs.

Because aged care facilities are not designed to cater for the very different and more intensive needs of younger people and are not funded to provide for these needs, facilities and staff struggle to provide the care these young people require.

There are a number of reasons why the National Alliance believes residential aged care is unsuited to the growing need for accommodation and support for young people with high and complex care needs.

These include that:

• Staff do not have the requisite skills and knowledge to care for younger people with Acquired Brain Injuries; and are not trained to deal with the specific care needs of other disabilities, such as Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy or Parkinson’s disease.
• Aged Care Nursing Homes do not offer rehabilitation.
• The resources needed to purchase appropriate equipment to support the complex care needs of young people does not exist.
• Therapeutic input resources needed to sustain an individual’s physical, cognitive and social functioning are largely unavailable. So too are the resources needed to foster that individual’s rehabilitative potential.
• Aged Care Staffing levels are insufficient to maintain and promote independence.

These young people simply want 'a life worth living' and a future worth having. They want to be productive members of their communities again.

But they aren't the only ones affected by this crisis. Thousands of frail older Australians cannot access the aged care places they need because of the systemic blockage these young people cause. Some of these frail older folk are forced to continue living in situations that are dangerous to their health and threaten their longevity, or are forced to live in acute care hospital settings while they wait for an aged care place to become available.

Every year, some millions of dollars is wasted keeping older Australians living in hospital. In New South Wales alone, it costs $116m every year to keep 900 frail aged folk living in hospital beds while they wait for a nursing home bed. Victoria pays $98m to keep 600 elderly folk living in hospital (2003).

This not only prevents the acutely ill from accessing the facilities and services meant for them; it also prevents ordinary Australians from obtaining the health care they need and helps hospital waiting lists to grow even longer.

We all think the system will be there to support us when we need it. The YPINH issue shows that it is not.

It also shows that any one of us, at any time, could find ourselves facing nursing home placement for ourselves, or for a loved one.

Would you want this to happen to you?