PDF printable version of Boost for culturally and linguistically diverse aged care (PDF 24 KB)
19 December 2006
SAN107/06
Older people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities across Australia now have access to more than 1,000 new aged care places following today’s announcement of the results of the 2006 Aged Care Approvals Round by the Minister for Ageing, Senator Santo Santoro.
The new places include more than 650 residential aged care places and more than 340 community aged care places that will enable older people to receive appropriate levels of low- and high-level home-based aged care.
“Aged care services will deliver culturally appropriate care to people from many language groups, including those from Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Macedonian, Polish, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese communities,” Senator Santoro said.
“Following a rigorous assessment, the new aged care places were allocated to applicants who demonstrated they could provide care that recognised the particular physical, social, spiritual and environmental care needs of individual care recipients.
“Many of the successful services will provide care to people from more than one language group and, in several cases, the providers have already established strong links with the local ethnic communities.
“These new places represent more than 13 per cent of all the new places being allocated this year. They acknowledge that for some special needs groups, including those from non-English-speaking backgrounds, there can be barriers that reduce the capacity of individuals or communities to have access to aged care services.
“They are also an acknowledgement by the Howard Government of the significant cultural and linguistic diversity that exists across the nation,” Senator Santoro said.
These places are part of a national allocation of almost 8,000 announced today by the Minister.
Additional information is available at: www.health.gov.au/acar2006
Media contact: Malcolm Cole - 0408 612 603
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