In this edition: NAIDOC Lunch photo gallery, an introduction to our Outreach Team working beyond aged care, insight into our SAHMRI Research Project, interview with NAIDOC Award Winner Daniel Motlop, and more!
Message from the CEO
Hello, welcome to our winter edition of our ACS Newsletter. It has certainly been a very cold winter and instances of influenza and COVID19 are still impacting the community.
Over the past 12 months, ACS has continued to add new Elders to our services and we are currently supporting over 900 Elders across South Australia. Our services are delivered in a range from low level care to high level residential care and ACS services are provided to Elders living in urban, regional and remote locations.
The aged care reforms continue with the Government changing the Aged Care Act, aged care services and aged care regulation. We will provide further updates on these matters, especially changes to aged care services where the Government aims to combine the Commonwealth Home Support Programme and Home Care Packages and the date for this change has now been deferred until July 2025.
It has been nearly 2 years since the recommendations from Aged Care Royal Commission were released and progress by the Federal Government and Department of Health and Age Care to implement all the recommendations is still progressing. As one of the largest aged care providers for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, the uncertainty about the aged care changes and what our future model of service might look like is a concern.
I am also concerned about the slow progress of implementing Chapter 7 of the Aged Care Royal Commission recommendations that relate to “Aged Care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People”. I repeat comments from many previous newsletters, that we will keep Elders informed of the aged care reforms.
I was very pleased to see so many Elders attend our NAIDOC event in Adelaide as it was the largest event ACS has ever held with over 350 people enjoying the day.
-Graham Aitken