Page 2956 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 2013
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As the ACT Minister for Ageing, I have heard about a broad range of issues which relate to older people in the ACT that they have raised with me. Because of the nature of the portfolio I get to meet many of our active ageing Canberrans. They are involved in so many varied activities that I think I would probably exhaust the Assembly if I were to describe them all. Whether they are dancers, gardeners, walkers, researchers, carers or volunteers in many capacities, our older Canberrans have an extraordinary program.
The ACT’s positive ageing strategy and programs provide a framework for many of these activities and will continue to do so into the future. At the same time, people also speak to me of the issues of morbidity and mortality—“What do we do when we start to get less mobile and able and what do we do when we come to the end of our lives?”
As members have already touched on today, this is something that is very personal, something that people often find very difficult to talk about. But certainly people in their later years to some extent have a very pragmatic perspective on this issue as well as, I guess, a focused perspective. These questions become perhaps less ones of policy discussion and ones very focused and real for them.
The ACT Greens took an older persons initiative to the election last year which included announcements about an Older Persons’ Assembly being held twice in four years and new funding to expand advanced care planning, which we believed was very important. As a result, these items were included in the 2012 Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement. I was glad to see advanced care planning funded in this year’s budget to the tune of $1.2 million over the next four years. I would like to move the amendment circulated in my name that reflects that fact. I move:
Insert new paragraph (1)(c):
“(ca) that funding for Advanced Care Planning to enable ACT Health to develop and implement a range of appropriate care planning tools is part of the shared agenda between ACT Labor and the ACT Greens in the 2012 Parliamentary Agreement;”.
This funding will enable ACT Health to develop and implement a range of appropriate care planning tools, including establishing a mobile clinic. I believe this will be a relief to many older and elderly patients and those with chronic illnesses and their families over coming years. The advanced care planning process assists people to think about future medical scenarios they may face and what type of treatment they would wish to receive. It provides clear directions from a patient to their carers when the patient is no longer able to communicate their wishes. It also assists patients with their right to refuse future medical treatment.
Establishing such a process also helps the patient think through the various scenarios which may arise over the course of their illness rather than discovering the range of decisions necessary as they suddenly appear. Advanced care planning is an important way to assist older people to think about future medical scenarios they may face and what type of treatment they would wish to receive in such situations. It also makes
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