Disabled to be offered alternative to nursing home care

THE federal and state governments will spend $190 million over the next five years to help move young people with disabilities out of nursing homes and into special accommodation.

Around 6500 people aged under 65 are living in residential aged care facilities around the country, 1000 of whom are under the age of 50.

Most of these people have ended up in residential aged care facilities after acquiring disabilities such as brain injuries, multiple sclerosis, Huntingdon's disease and motor neurone disease.

Isolated socially and emotionally, these residents often miss out on a range of care services, making such accommodation less than ideal.

But according to the Rudd Government's parliamentary secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services, Bill Shorten, help is on the way.

"Many people aren't even aware young people are in aged care, certainly not in the numbers there are," Mr Shorten told The Sunday Age. "When I started this job, I wasn't really aware of this as an issue. Then I found out that a guy I had been at university with was in a nursing home and had been for over a decade. That really shook me and focused my attention on the program."

The main aim of the program — to be rolled out over the next five years in co-operation with state and territory governments — is to move younger people out of nursing homes and into more suitable share accommodation with people of a similar age and who share similar health-care needs.

It also aims to divert younger people who acquire a disability in the future and are at risk of going into a nursing home into more appropriate accommodation.

If younger people who are already in nursing homes want to stay where they are, then the program aims to ensure that they have better services available to them.

"The states and territories are all at different stages, but Victoria's really doing well," Mr Shorten said.

"These people, who have all had tremendous bad luck in their lives, well, society has really failed them if their only option is a bed in a residential aged care facility.

"They deserve better; they deserve the same choices about their lives as every other Australian does.

"I'm really proud that this program is delivering it."

The Young People in Nursing Homes Alliance has led a concerted campaign to offer young Australians with support needs the choice about where they live and how they are supported.

Source: The Age, Australia