Matron Iris
Seventeen a day. I want you to sit with that number before I give you the rest.
In 2025-26, 6,436 older Australians who'd been approved for Support at Home died while they were still waiting for the funding. The year before, under the old system, it was 4,812. The figures aren't a clean comparison, the department says, because the system changed. Fine. Seventeen a day is still seventeen a day. More than 106,000 people were on the official list at the end of June. Four Corners puts the real number waiting for full funding near 154,000. A May report found people waited about a year. The Council on the Ageing says a package should arrive within thirty days of assessment.
The minister says the death rate is lower than for the older population generally, and that 83,000 extra home care places went out last year with 32,000 more coming. The opposition says the data only came out after the government ignored two Senate orders. A man in Hobart with Parkinson's and cancer waited over twelve months. His package was approved three days before he died.
I ran wards. You can't fix a backlog by describing it. My question for the minister is a matron's question. What's the number this month, and who's ringing the people on the list?
Talk to your GP or health professional about your own body.
Source: ABC News, 2026-10-08
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