Royal Commission asks older Australians to speak up

A SESSION for seniors, their carers and family was hosted last Thursday in Sebastopol, assisting people to better understand the national Royal Commission into Aged Care and how Ballarat can get involved.

Run by Ballarat Community Health and the Council on the Ageing Victoria, the event covered what the Royal Commission is, its terms of reference, ways in which people can make their own valuable contributions, and encouraged them to be part of COTA Victoria’s own broad submission.

Specifically, information and stories of lived experiences in the areas of residential aged care, home care, dementia care, and young people living in residential care is currently sought.

COTA Victoria CEO, Ronda Held said the body has been holding these events in areas of higher cultural diversity, and rurally, across the state.

“Mainly in areas where we think people are least likely to put in submissions, or where they’ve got particular needs,” she said.

Submissions can be made to the Royal Commission in a variety of ways.

“They’re not particularly specific about it so you can actually ring up and have something recorded over the phone if you can’t write something down,” Ms Held said.

“We’ve got a template that we suggest people could use just as a way of helping them record their stories and if they don’t want to write a submission themselves, but they have issues, they can tell us and we’ll put it in our submission as well.

“At any time, if people want to make contact with COTA and raise an issue, they can certainly do that.”

BCH CEO, Sean Duffy said his team is keen to support people in sharing their lived experiences.

“What we want to see is a strengthening of existing services so that people are receiving the best care possible. We are extremely pleased that this Royal Commission is underway,” he said.

Ms Held said it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

“We really want people to speak up and talk about the issues that concern them. Also, any good stories they’ve got, good examples of where it’s worked well, because we want to disseminate those and make sure other people can hear the good stories.

“We don’t want people to be scared of asking for care when they need it. We don’t want people to suffer, there are a lot of good providers around and we need to reinforce that,” she said.

Not-for-profit, COTA Victoria has represented the rights and interests of Victorians over 50 for almost 70 years, promoting opportunities, championing the positive aspects of ageing and encouraging community, corporate and government thinking.

All materials from the session are available at cotavic.org.au. More information about the Royal Commission is accessible at agedcare.royalcommission.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx.