Letters from readers
24 October 2019
Write to THE VOICE on voice@cpsa.org.au or use the website contact form.
GPs shake their heads and develop their own nursing home standards
26 September 2019
The Government’s new-broom aged care standards are so good, wonderful, brilliant and comprehensive, GPs have decided to develop their own standards.
GPs and pharmacists fight it out
26 September 2019
DOCTORS wanting to be pharmacists and pharmacists wanting to be doctors, that’s the turf war currently exercising minds at the Pharmacy Guild and the Australian Medical Association (AMA).
Say ‘No’ to the mindless welfare card
26 September 2019
A cashless welfare card and drug testing for recipients costing more than the very modest increase Newstart campaigners are asking for: sanity’s gone missing.
$800 pensioner bonus? Deeming changes from 20 September
26 September 2019
The $800 pensioner bonus that never was! Changes to the deeming rates have been getting pensioners’ hopes up, but only 119 households actually received it.
More niggly savings at the expense of older Australians
26 September 2019
Value-added taxes and sales taxes like the GST are pretty common overseas, but pensioners will have to do without their GST pension supplement if they go overseas for longer than six weeks. And there’s more …
Parramatta nursing home does some backsliding
26 September 2019
Pick up a dis-accredited nursing home up for a song and then let quality and safety slide. Is Anglican Community Services going the same way as a industry leper Bupa?
RN 24/7 for one more year
26 September 2019
NSW sits on its hands as the Aged Care Royal Commission works its way through staffing requirements at nursing homes. A victory of sorts only for advocates
Crackdown on elder abuse
26 September 2019
The new NSW Ageing and Disability Commissioner warns retirement village operators he will have them in his sights over the issue of elder abuse.
Basic funeral dead and buried
26 September 2019
It’s the quick and the dead if you want a regulated basic funeral. From 1 February 2020, the basic funeral will be defunct replaced with providers’ cheapest options.
Aged Care Royal Commission six month extension
26 September 2019
A six month extension pushes the Final Report due date to 12 November 2020. Also Tony Pagone QC is announced as the third Commissioner.
LETTERS from readers, October 2019
26 September 2019
Email voice@cpsa.org.au , if you would like to write to CPSA to have your views and comments published online and in the monthly print version of THE VOICE, CPSA’s newsletter.
0% Term Deposits?
23 August 2019
Getting no interest or, even worse, paying the bank interest over your own savings, is that something retirees and intending retirees are now countenancing or is there an alternative?
Bupa Eden’s 11th hour escape
23 August 2019
The goings-on at Bupa's nursing home in Eden weren't as dramatic as the wholesale abandonment of frail elderly residents at the Earle Haven nursing home on the Gold Coast, but it demonstrated once again that the new-broom Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission is an impotent and inadequate defender of the health and wellbeing of nursing home residents. Bupa and the Commission played a game of chicken: Bupa won.
Nursing homes are understaffed period
23 August 2019
Guest contributor, Dr Michael Wynne of the unfunded, grass roots advocacy organisation Aged Care Crisis explains why increasing staffing levels in nursing home is a prerequisite, not the be-al-and-end-all, of quality care in Australia's nursing homes.
Health funding or health profiteering crisis?
23 August 2019
Public debate on health centres on private health insurance and how unaffordable it has become and how inadequate. CPSA is an unlikely defender of private health insurance funds, but the funds are only secondary culprits, enablers of the primary culprits.
Is the Pharmacy Guild protecting you or itself?
23 August 2019
Pharmacies are among the best protected small businesses in Australia. The Pharmacy Guild wants you to believe that that is for your own good. But is it?
Poverty waits for no one, not even inquisitive senators
23 August 2019
It may be the best our federal Parliament can do right now, but people on Newstart deserve better than a Senate inquiry which is to report sometime next year.
Who let public housing down?
23 August 2019
OVER the last decade State and Territory Governments have allowed for over 20,000 public housing dwellings to be lost. In order to pick up the slack, non-profit providers have increased the amount of homes they operate but it is not keeping pace with demand.
Downsizing? Here’s how to dodge dodgy apartment buildings
23 August 2019
Downsizing into an apartment may be an attractive idea, but how do you find an apartment building without significant defects? A few tips to avoid the worst disasters.