Bradford Sue: General Debate 
Bradford Sue: General Debate 
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SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Having just heard that very self-congratulatory speech made by the Minister for Social Development and Employment Mr Maharey and his discussion of all the things that the Labour caucus will be celebrating this coming weekend I hope that the Labour Party and its members will be looking quite deeply at the situation for one group of workers in this country and the people they try to serve—home-care workers and the many people they provide health-care and personal services for. 
We live in a society in which everyone acknowledges the growing number of older people in our community and our increasing longevity. We also live in a time when thankfully much more focus is put on the rights of people with impairments to continue to live independently and in their own homes for as long as they can. However there is a big gap between the hopes and expectations of older people and people with serious disabilities and the reality of the workforce that cares for them in an effort to allow their fragile independence to continue. From the many letters phone calls and other messages that the Greens are currently receiving from around the country—as I am sure many members are—and from the inquiry currently being carried out by the Health Committee it is clear that there is an emerging crisis in the provision of home-care services that must be dealt with as a matter of extreme urgency. 
Rural Women New Zealand report that as of late September they have been turning away an average of 12 clients per day and that other providers are in a similar position. In another example five paraplegics from Burwood Hospital are unable to return to their home district in the Manawatu—the Minister Steve Maharey’s own area—because there are no carers to support them there. Some industry sources say that staff turnover can be as high as 90 percent with an overall 40 percent turnover rate around the country. The Parent and Family Resource Centre warns of a looming meltdown at Christmas and states that home-care workers are dangerously overworked to the point where the health and safety of both caregivers and patients are dangerously compromised. 
As the Minister Ruth Dyson mentioned earlier one of the consequences of lower unemployment is that many workers are no longer happy to work as home carers. Is it any wonder when those staff who in many cases receive the lowest of wages are asked to undertake casual hours endlessly and often have to pay their own transport time and petrol costs out of their already meagre pay packets thus reducing their wages even further. Some staff are working from 10 to 14 days at a stretch. Many are expected to be available randomly and on demand at as little as 30 minutes’ notice. 
Both the positive ageing strategy and the New Zealand Disability Strategy have a strong focus on a vision of older people and people with impairments being able to live independently for as long as possible. The gap between the Government’s intentions and the reality for patients and caregivers has become a chasm. I do not entirely blame the Minister for that as I recognise that the situation has been brewing for a long time. I also acknowledge that the Minister is working really hard with her advisers to try to address the issues. However what I am most concerned about today and why I am raising it here in the House this afternoon is the need to engender a sense of urgency in the Government that the situation is already in crisis mode with many people missing out on the care they need today and that it is only going to get worse the closer we get to the holiday season when even fewer staff will be available. 
There are solutions to the problems around home carers. Some of them lie in what Ms Dyson talked about today—for example more quality control and accountability from providers—but the blame cannot continue to be laid solely at their door. Government funding should reflect the actual costs of providing care not just a price fixed randomly and vastly variably around the country. The training institution for caregivers the Community Support Services ITO should be enabled to provide its courses at no cost to either workers or employers. All home-care workers should be paid petrol costs and travel time between clients’ homes not just those workers lucky enough to work for providers who make allowance for that. Government and district health boards should be working closely to ensure that in many more situations providers are enabled to engage staff permanently for regular hours rather than on an hour-by-hour client-by-client basis. 
All older New Zealanders and all people with impairments who are making a go of it in their own homes deserve a chance to receive the health and personal support they need. All the workers who provide their services deserve to be valued properly not just through much improved wages and conditions but also by access to high-quality training. These issues must be addressed now or we risk a crisis in the next few weeks and months that will become almost unmanageable.