Whanganui DHB response to concerning wait times to get into rest home care

The growing elderly population raises concerns about rest home wait times. Photo/ file

There's no way New Zealand — or the Whanganui District Health Board — can afford to pay for aged care for everyone, New Zealand Council of Elders chairwoman Sharon Duff says.

The average cost for a week's care in a rest home is $800 to $1200. Hospitallevel care costs even more.

Whanganui District Health Board (WDHB) gets a pool of government funding to pay for the healthcare in a region with a small population but high health needs and low socio-economic status.

"In a low decile population with high health needs, you have heavy demands on the hospital, and less ability to spend on care in the community," Duff said.

Whanganui has enough rest home beds for now, but New Zealand Aged Care Association chief executive Simon Wallace says it will need 60 to 100 more during the next 10 years.

To get a bed in a rest home, people are assessed in their own homes. It's "a very proscribed process" that is used across New Zealand.

Despite that, getting assessed as needing rest home care is easier in some places than others.

Wallace said more than half of health boards denied rest home care to people who needed it. He wants more consistent assessment.

Whanganui wasn't the hardest place to get rest home care, which surprised Duff.

"I would have thought we would be close to the bottom. We only have this amount of money and it only goes a certain distance.

"Probably the DHB is doing a pretty good job with the money they've got."

Whanganui District Health Board service and business planning general manager Tracey Schiebli. Photo/ file

People should give up expecting they will get rest home care at the end of their lives, and instead take responsibility for themselves. At age 55, she said, they should be thinking about where they want to live, who with and what they still want to do.

Now is the ideal time for Whanganui people in their late 50s to sell the large family house and find a warm, safe, one or two-bedroom home with the right technology for their later years.

Duff has sympathy for people with high health needs, no savings and no house — it's hard to rent and live on the pension.

She supports Housing New Zealand's move to build more one and twobedroom houses.

They are ideal for older people, she said, and for people with mental health conditions that make it hard for them to live with others.

Projected growth of Whanganui's elderly population:

Last 10 years of elderly population growth in Whanganui:

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