• Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Local History
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise With Us
  • About Us
  • Subscribe
  • Read Our Newspapers Online
    • Read the Latest Western Port News
    • Read the Latest Mornington News
    • Read the Latest Southern Peninsula News
    • Read the Latest Frankston Times
    • Read the Latest Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News
  • Competition
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Trending
  • Resident road rage over reduced speed limit
  • Steele retires, ‘Stirts’ to Seagulls
  • Pythons and Tigers all square, oh my!
  • Frankston Football Club hold a successful fair
  • Home services crisis after switch to private providers
  • Call for help after donation drop
  • True passion the source of author inspiration
  • OAM for ‘Coodabeens’ Bill Baxter
Facebook Twitter
MPNEWSMPNEWS
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Local History
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise With Us
  • About Us
  • Subscribe
  • Competition
MPNEWSMPNEWS
Home»Latest News»Looming ‘tsunami’ of carers’ legacy
Latest News

Looming ‘tsunami’ of carers’ legacy

By Stephen TaylorApril 29, 2019Updated:April 30, 2019No Comments3 Mins Read
Dr Graham Cato
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email
Dr Graham Cato

A “TSUNAMI” of unfulfilled needs is about to swamp the Mornington Peninsula unless governments immediately act to provide more and better care for the disabled “children” of aged parents.

That’s the warning from long-time GP Graham Cato who daily sees the heartbreak imposed on loving – but now-elderly – parents forced to house and provide for their disabled children all their lives but who now are becoming physically and emotionally beyond it.

Dr Cato said cynical governments had not bothered providing viable alternative accommodation because these loving and compliant parents were providing it “for free” to support their offspring. 

The issue was highlighted at a meeting run by Community Lifestyle Accommodation in Mornington earlier this month where delegates pleaded for help for carers burdened by their adult children but worried about what will happen “when they go” (“Carers in crisis over dependent children” The News 9/4/19).

CLA estimates that, by 2025, there will be a shortfall of accommodation places for 35,000-55,000 NDIS clients “who will have little hope of ever developing any sort of community inclusion and independent living”. 

Dr Cato, who has run his clinic on Frankston-Flinders Road, Balnarring, since 1979, has also been involved in assisting at non-profit Kindilan at Red Hill which provides residential care of those with severe intellectual and physical disability who have nowhere else to go.

“Little did I know at the time that I would still be doing my Wednesday clinics and be on call for their medical issues 39 years later,” he said.

He became an inaugural member of Australian Association of Developmental Disability Medicine (AADDM) and attended its annual conferences to “learn more about this group … about whom I never learned during my studies”.

Dr Cato said that while most of these clients initially were teenagers they are now adults in 50s-plus. “I have had increasing contact with parents continuing to care for their ageing children at home and have tried to advise and help as much as possible,” he said. “However, I cannot build houses.”

He added: “Without a word of  criticism or complaint your readers could not possibly understand or comprehend how terrifying it is for these parents to imagine what will happen to their doubly devoted children when they are deceased or in other ways unable to care for them.

“I guess [they] could painfully imagine one of their own children becoming disabled, either by illness or accident, and [ponder] what would happen to their care in the future?”

Dr Cato has called on governments to act before the “tsunami of care needs” overwhelms the community in the near future. “I think that the best and perhaps only solution is to provide accommodation which is appropriate to their needs associated with well-paid, well-trained carers,” he said.

Suitable accommodation would need specific equipment, such as lifting machines and 24/7 care to help clients dress, provide transport, and “cater to every aspect of their future care”.

While this would enable the “lovely, but unfortunate, people to continue to lead the life their devoted parents have prepared for them” it is “just not happening”.

Dr Cato said over the past decade the care needs of 40 to 50-year-old disabled clients and their 70 to 80-year-old parents had created their own “tsunami” which could only worsen in the next decade.

“This has got to be something everyone realises is a problem and that we have to work together to solve it,” he said.

First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 30 April 2019

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

Home services crisis after switch to private providers

July 4, 2022

Call for help after donation drop

July 4, 2022

Shire ‘no’ to Esso’s bid for power

June 27, 2022

Call for panel to consider future of green wedge

June 27, 2022
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Weather
Jul 5, 2022 - Tue
Mornington, Australia
13°C
clear sky
clear sky
1 m/s, ESE
59%
768.07 mmHg
tue07/05 wed07/06 thu07/07 fri07/08 sat07/09
sky is clear
12/9°C
sky is clear
10/9°C
light rain
12/11°C
moderate rain
11/9°C
light rain
12/9°C
Peninsula Essence Magazine

Click here to read

June 27, 2022
Peninsula Kids Magazine

Click here to read

May 26, 2022
Council Watch

Keeping watch on councillor costs

June 27, 2022

Leadership lacking for ‘neutral’ policy

June 20, 2022
Interview

True passion the source of author inspiration

July 4, 2022
Property of the Week

278 Dundas Street, Rye

May 11, 2022
100 Years Ago This Week

Frankston Football Club hold a successful fair

July 5, 2022
Contact
Street: 63 Watt Road, Mornington, 3931
Mailing: PO Box 588, Hastings, 3915
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Local History
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise With Us
  • About Us
  • Subscribe
  • Competition
About

Established in 2006, Mornington Peninsula News Group (MPNG) is a locally owned and operated, independent media company.

MPNG publishes five weekly community newspapers: the Western Port News, Mornington News, Southern Peninsula News, Frankston Times and Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News.

MPNG also publishes two glossy magazines: Peninsula Essence and Peninsula Kids.

Facebook Twitter
© 2022 Mornington Peninsula News Group.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.