Apologies – I’m probably a little late to the party on this one… but aged care – that’s quite the navigation exercise, isn’t it?

Particularly if you don’t have a PHD, an MBA, and three undergraduate degrees, one majoring in Bureaucratic Mumbo Jumbo.

Talk about exhausting. And confusing. Three weeks into the process and I’m ready to sign up myself. If, of course, I can’t work out where I need to sign up, and what for…

I’m sure it’s been the same impenetrable maze for years, but of course it’s only when it appears on your radar that it becomes a “real” problem, a problem that human instinct dictates, should be hand-balled onto somebody else. The Government, for instance.

Isn’t that why we pay taxes all our life, so when somebody is incapable of looking after themselves, the holders of the public purse strings step in?

The first thing I learned, while hoping The Government might be able to help me with my aged care problem, is that it’s a big problem – really big. And incredibly complex.

Not everybody knocks on the door of the Department of Marine and Fisheries to get a boat licence, but most people get old, and at some point, require “care”.

Compounding the problem, that requirement usually comes in a rush. Our parents, independent and capable one minute, with one innocuous hallway tumble, become higher need “patients”. Statistics. ACAT assessment No 661992664, or similar.

The problem I see (and understand I’m an expert with three solid weeks experience in the field of Aged Care so listen up) is The Government is dealing with matters that are by nature, urgent.

They require immediate attention. But guess who, on account of its lumbering bureaucratic framework, is ill equipped to move quickly and act instinctively?

Go forward three places if you answered … “The Government”.

I’m aware there are significant changes in the wind.

As a result of another impossibly expensive Royal Commission, (anybody else thinking Tony out of Utopia?) we’ve now got the promise of an $18 billion aged care reform package, bringing “generational change”. Whacky-doo.

But did we really need a royal commission to determine that? I reckon if somebody in authority had sat down with a couple of aged care workers and had a chat over a cup of coffee and a sticky bun, they would have got most of the answers they needed.

Pretty clearly, THERE AREN’T ENOUGH OF THEM. Instead of employing more people to produce reports into what’s not working, why don’t we plough money directly into employing more nurses and health care workers? The poor people who are run off their feet, trying to look after seven 85 year-olds at a time, all while filling in the paper work that’s required to ensure The Government doesn’t get sued.

I think that most reasonable people of average “I know where to leave the shopping trolley” intelligence can see, the current system is totally out of whack.

Too many layers, too many paper pushers, covering off matters that are only of concern to other paper pushers. The end user – the patients – seem to be the last ones considered.

The “reports” generated don’t bring an aged care worker to their room, to help them go to the toilet or to make sure they’ve taken their medicine, as prescribed by the geriatric specialist they never see, because, they too, are writing reports, making sure all the bureaucratic boxes have been ticked.

As somebody with a boat licence but with no prior experience in the “aged care” sector, I wondered if I was being too intolerant. But talk to any number of rational, fair-minded people, and their experience is much the same.

Elderly people, once they’ve been “ACAT” assessed (challenge No 1), are waiting nine months for their care packages.

And if they’re still alive when the packages are approved (in a couple of instances, that hasn’t been the case) there’s still the issue of finding a health care provider capable of delivering the said services. Anglicare, Blue Nurses – they’re all at capacity.

Even understanding how it all works – or should work – is a nightmare. A stockbroker mate had in his “team” – a doctor, a financial planner, an economist, and a specialist in government legislation – to navigate his way through the maze. And all the while, he was sleeping in the basement of his parents’ house, with a dongle around his neck, listening to his mother on a baby monitor.

Yep, let’s prepare another report, shall we?

I was interested to learn that there’s now a whole industry of “brokers”, people you pay to help you jump through all the aged care hoops, and secure, in the most time efficient manner, the services that you’re entitled to. What does that tell you?

The really sad thing – the greatest victims of the current set up are those who, if you read the relevant government website, deserve to be treated with dignity.

“Senior Australians built our nation. They are our parents and grandparents, our founders and protectors, and they have contributed so much to our Australian communities. It is our duty and responsibility to give every Australian the care they need in their later years”.

Blah Blah Blah. Have you finished that report?

The other victims are the poor overworked soles who are currently doing all the heavy lifting, those who know, through no fault of their own, that the service they’re providing is not nearly as good or as thorough as it could be if they had the appropriate level of support.

Yes, aged care, it’s clearly an industry in need of its own urgent remediation.

If somebody from The Government would like to contact to me, I’d be happy to prepare a full report.