Sam Rae: Aged Care Minister lands in Perth vows to ‘listen’ to WA with but no promises on fixing health crisis

Federal Aged Care Minister Sam Rae vowed he’s “listening” after arriving in Perth, but made no promises to quickly address the shortage that has been blamed for the State’s hospital crisis.

Mr Rae told industry leaders it was “unfortunate” that he had lost his voice, and didn’t take questions outside a round-table discussion.

Inside, he apologised for sounding “raspy” and promised to continue to work with the State Government.

“We’ll always pitch in where we can, that’s my absolute commitment to you,” Mr Rae said.

“We’ve provided over the last number of years $60 million to deliver three projects to tackle delayed discharge.

“We’ve also delivered $64 million for over 17 projects in WA of the First to Aged Care capital assistant program.

“In acknowledging those efforts, I’ll also be very clear and begin this discussion by saying they are not a defence or in any way to suggest that these problems are solved.

“There are still significant challenges ahead of us, which is why we’re here today to have this discussion. For me this is a listening exercise.”

Mr Rae announced a $30 million grant towards a new aged care facility in East Perth, which WA Aged Care Minister Simone McGurk welcomed.

But Ms McGurk said much more is needed.

“(It is) very, very welcome. That means we’ve got 27 more facilities to go,” she said.

“We’ll continue to do what we can as a State Government to look at land, to liaise with the providers and also to look at innovation as well. And we have had a bit of a discussion about that.”

The Cook Government has complained that WA has an urgent backlog of 8000 Federal home care packages, to keep seniors in their homes and out of hospital.

Mr Rae recently bowed to pressure to fast-track 20,000 packages but it’s unclear how they will be divided between the states and territories.

“The Federal Government’s view is that we are getting about 10 per cent,” Ms McGurk said.

“That’s not what the data is telling us.”