Australia Needs Age-Friendly cities To Support Elders
The federal government has made legislative changes in response to the horror stories of abuse from the Royal Commission into Aged Care institutions. However, the changes focus on residential care homes while ignoring many older Australians living in their own homes.
An analysis comparing 85 policy documents across all three levels of Australian governments against World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on age-friendly cities has found that Australian policies surrounding aged care reflect outdated views of old age. As the policies overwhelmingly focus on care and support services while neglecting housing, transport, walk-ability and other important aspects.
Australia must look more broadly, to the many older Australians who live in the community and creating age-friendly cities need to be considered.