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Social Issues

12 September 2026

Andrew Hastie provided a furious alternative to kowtowing to One Nation. Will it stick? - The Guardian

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Andrew Hastie provided a furious alternative to kowtowing to One Nation. Will it stick? - The Guardian

Andrew Hastie provided a furious alternative to kowtowing to One Nation. Will it stick? The Guardian

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South Australia’s $123 million tab is a warning that aged care policy is failing patients and hospitalsSocial Issues

12 September 2026

South Australia’s $123 million tab is a warning that aged care policy is failing patients and hospitals

The South Australian government’s bill of more than $123 million last year on patients stranded in hospital while waiting for aged care beds is stark and sobering. Spending at that scale on people who should be in congregate or supported living not only signals a failure to deliver appropriate aged‑care places; it also demonstrates an expensive mismatch between the settings where older Australians should be cared for and where they are actually ending up. The human cost behind the dollar figure is the clearest concern. When older people who need residential aged care cannot move into a suitable facility, the hospital bed becomes their unintended accommodation. That is not where comprehensive, dignified aged care is delivered; it is a stopgap that can leave people isolated and unable to access specialist services tailored to their needs. Taxpayers, meanwhile, pay a premium. Hospitals are designed and staffed to manage acute illness, not to provide long‑term residential care. Funding an acute health system to shoulder continuing aged care needs is inefficient. The $123 million figure is therefore not just a line item on a budget; it is a red flag about how workforce, capacity and planning are currently aligned — or misaligned — across the health and aged care systems. This problem matters to families across the state. For those with elderly relatives who need extra support, long stays in hospital can mean delayed rehabilitation, slower recovery and a sense of being in the wrong place. For younger patients and elective surgery lists, the presence of patients who no longer need acute care can contribute to longer waits and strained services. The money the state is spending to house people in hospital while they wait for aged care places could, theoretically, be directed instead at building or supporting the right alternatives. At the very least, the scale of the spending should prompt a rigorous audit of where the bottlenecks lie and what options are available. Governments should ask themselves whether incentives and contracting arrangements are skewing the system towards short‑term fixes rather than long‑term capacity. Are there ways to better coordinate placement services, to accelerate safe transfers to appropriate settings, or to invest in community and home‑based options that reduce the choke‑point on hospital beds? The headline figure ought to be the start of that conversation, not an end in itself. This is not merely a problem for health administrators; it is a public policy challenge with moral and fiscal dimensions. The state has paid millions to accommodate people in the wrong place. That money might have gone towards expanding aged care capacity, improving transition services or supporting home‑based care that keeps people where they prefer to be. South Australia’s $123 million expenditure on stranded patients should be shame and spur in equal measure: shame because it reflects a system that leaves elders in limbo; spur because it makes clear the savings and better outcomes that could follow from targeted reform. Ordinary South Australians deserve a system that treats ageing with dignity and spends public money on the right services in the right place.

Community angle

The spending figure affects hospital capacity, taxpayer money and the welfare of older people — families and voters have a stake in reforms that reduce long hospital waits and provide care in the right setting.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/feed/45910/rss.xmlOriginal source

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