'Baby boomer freight train' makes home care a pressing need

In order to better handle Australia’s shifting demographics, the nation needs to prioritise home care as part of its healthcare model.

That’s according to leading demographer and social commentator Bernard Salt, who recently spoke at the Silverchain Symposium in Perth.

During his address, Salt said the focus on ‘bricks and mortar’ hospitals was a 19th century healthcare model that was not fit for purpose for a demographic that will be heavily impacted by the aging baby boomer generation.

Bernard Salt (R) with Silverchain Chief Executive Dale Fisher at the Silverchain Symposium.

“The baby boomer freight train is heading straight for us; we will have to deal with an issue at a scale that humanity has never had to deal with previously: so many people in a stage of the life cycle where they need so much care,” he said.

“We have to reorganise society in such a way that we can care for the needs of an older population. The two options we have would be ratchet up taxes to a stratospheric level or we can find innovative solutions, and providing care at home is one way to do that.

“The baby boomers are a generation that is not just going to sit around and wait to die. They will want to remain mobile and active and they will want to contribute to society.

“They will make it clear how their care should be delivered and the vast majority will want in-home care. As a consequence, we will see the care sector redefined, re-imagined and repurposed by the emerging older baby-boomer generation.”

Salt said that based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data, the 85+ population will grow to more than million by 2071, with the year-on-year net growth peaking at 62,000 by 2032 as the baby boomer generation ages.

Salt said society as a whole would also need to shift the way it viewed older generations, including the “age language” used to describe older Australians.

“It has to be more nuanced than describing older people as simply being, for example, aged 55-plus.

“There has to be more nuance and categories when describing older people; there’s a vast difference between being 55 and 85.”

“When you examine the international healthcare direction and progressive policies overseas that incentivise the shift to home care, Australia falls well short of the proportion of care that can be and should be delivered in the home,” said Silverchain Group Chief Executive Dale Fisher AM.

“Importantly, consumers want this shift, and policy and funding are lagging behind. It makes social and economic sense to divert our current investment in bricks and mortar to digital infrastructures that enable more care to be provided in the home. A shift in policy and funding to home care will also free up the acute care sector to do what it does best. The future of care is in the home.”

Top image credit: iStock.com/A-Digit