The new government is urged to consider tamariki, whānau and older people, writes Jo O’Neill.
We congratulate the National Party, Act New Zealand and New Zealand First and look forward to a successful coalition government being formed.
As a provider of social services and aged care, we believe that the promises made by these political parties will have an impact on tamariki, whānau and older people we care for and support.
For example, prior to the election, the National Party promised to introduce Family Boost in which families would receive a rebate for childcare. We believe this will go some way to helping ease the financial pressure many families are under.
Every day we see whānau struggling to put food on their tables after paying essentials such as rent, power bills and transport costs.
Our foodbank continues to be in high demand with a 13.1% increase in food parcel demand for the August 1 to October 31 period compared with the same time last year. In the last two months the increase has jumped significantly to 16.9% on the same period last year and we expect demand to grow even further as we approach the Christmas period, a time of great stress when families are trying their best to provide a little extra for their tamariki.
The number of people accessing the Dunedin City Electricity Fund has also increased by 31.2% for the last three months compared with the same time last year.
These facts and statistics paint a very bleak picture for whānau who are struggling to pay for the necessities.
National, Act and NZ First have all promoted tackling crime by taking a tougher stance. We urge the government to address the underlying factors that lead to crime — poverty being the main one.
As well as providing services for tamariki and whānau, Presbyterian Support Otago (PSO) is also a provider of aged care services which have been woefully underfunded by successive governments. In recognition of the impact of this, we call on these parties to recognise the importance of fully funding the sector to secure care for our most vulnerable.
The National and Act parties have promised to train more doctors and nurses which is fantastic, but still fails to address the perennial problem of underfunding of aged care.
PSO is a charity and has been providing aged care to older people for over 100 years. We rely on our partnership with our community to succeed and do not have the income streams that companies operating retirement villages enjoy today.
For this reason, there is a very real risk that more aged care beds will be forced to close without adequate funding. Without these care facilities, older people who are unable to afford living in retirement villages may end up in hospital, putting more strain on the already under-resourced public health system.
Present funding in an aged care facility at hospital-level care is $258 per day versus $1592 per day in a public hospital, a significant difference. NZ First has acknowledged that more must be done to support the aged care sector.
It has promised to begin to address standard bed residential care support to providers by indexing it to inflation, undertake a select committee inquiry into aged care provision, engage openly and constructively with the sector and secure bipartisan agreement to fully fund the care and dementia beds needed now and in the future.
We look forward to seeing how that will be implemented.
— Jo O’Neill is the Presbyterian Support Otago chief executive.
