What we learned, Saturday 17 September
And that’s where we’ll leave you this evening. Here’s what we learned:
Prime minister Anthony Albanese has laid a wreath in Green Park upon arrival to the UK to attend the Queen’s funeral on Monday.
Independent senator for Tasmania Jacqui Lambie spoke at the Festival of Dangerous ideas in Sydney. In a session entitled “On blowing things up” Lambie condemned Labor for refusing to wind back the $243bn stage three tax cuts announced under the Coalition prior to the federal election.
In his weekly op-ed for the Northern Daily Leader the former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce defended what Labor has called “pork-barrelling” as delivering essential funds to regional Australia.
In the latest development in the ongoing stoush between the NSW government and the rail union, the transport minister, David Elliott, announced the government was headed to court in a bid to block union plans to deactivate Opal readers at train stations.
Flood warnings have been issued for inland NSW and northern Victoria. Emergency personnel performed 11 rescues from floodwaters overnight on Saturday, with more wild weather forecast for the weekend.
Penny Wong, the minister for foreign affairs, described the discovery of mass civilian burial sites in Ukraine as “horrific”.
NSW Health said more than half of NDIS participants and aged care residents in public hospitals had exceeded their estimated discharge dates as of August.
Updated
NSW Health says more than half of NDIS patients and aged care residents in hospitals exceeded their estimated discharge dates as of August
News Corp is reporting that an NDIS patient has been stuck in hospital for more than five years despite being medically cleared for discharge three years ago.
The Daily Telegraph’s Linda Silmalis writes:
A damning internal NSW Health report into the crisis has identified the person as the “longest-stay NDIS” patient in a NSW hospital, having remained 1,068 days “beyond the estimated date of discharge”.
The patient was one of 557 NDIS patients in a NSW hospital as at August 3, with more than half having stayed past their discharge dates. The extra unnecessary days being spent in hospital by the NDIS patients was costing taxpayers a staggering $32.8m.
Guardian Australia has not been able to independently verify the story. However, a NSW Health spokesperson has said:
Patients may sometimes remain in hospital despite being medically ready for discharge as they await a place at a residential aged care facility (RACF) or for National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) services.
NSW Health is working with the Australian government to try and a find sustainable longer-term solution for discharge of older people from hospital to residential aged care facilities.
As of 3 August 2022, there were more than 1,000 RACF and NDIS patients with 620 (58%) exceeding their estimated date of discharge.
Unfortunately, there has been a growing trend of closures of residential aged care facilities in regional, rural and remote areas in NSW. These closures impact small communities and the acute health system.
In 2021-22, 17 residential aged care facilities closed in NSW, equating to around 700 aged care beds. This does not include residential aged care facilities which have reduced their operational bed numbers but remain open.
While aged care is an Australian government responsibility, NSW Health and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care are working collaboratively to support the aged care sector to ensure timely transfer into suitable residential aged care facilities (RACF) based on the level of care each older person requires.
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