The retirement village and aged care providors in Durban quietly explain that their national government does not have an ageing policy. Old people are not a priority compared with the other challenges the country faces.
The result is a Global AgeWatch ranking (measuring wellbeing of the aged) for South Africa of 80 out of 96 countries – Australia is ranked 8th.
There are 500 aged care facilities for a population of 52 million people. That is one care facility for every 104,000 people. With 3,000 care facilities in Australia, we have one facility for every 7,700 people.
The government makes a payment of $230 per month per resident in a facility plus a pension of $130 a month to people over 60 that have assets of less than $70,000 including the family home.
To provide a very basic level of residential care costs operators $800 per month. They take the $130 pension in full plus they receive the $260 from Government, creating a loss of $410 loss per month per resident which has to be raised from the family or donations.
Operators explain that the private donor sector in Durban is ‘exhausted’ and they now have to be more enterprising – developing small businesses to create cash to fund short falls. Frozen meals is one example, using their own facilities as a base demand.
At the top end of care, the user pays an entry of say $40,000 and then a monthly fee of $1,600. But this is rare.
Consequently the aged care operators estimate they touch less than 10% of the need for residential and home care. There is negligible new care facilities being built and the existing buildings are 40+ years old with multi bed wards; ensuite bathrooms are also rare.
However all facilities are meticulously clean and the staff remarkably warm and respectful of their residents.
