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Annual Report 2007 The most significant happening this year could well be the establishment of the Seniors’ Roundtable by the seniors’s organisations. For the first time we have a united voice in Queensland with which to speak to all sections of government. Former Communities’ Minister Warren Pitt agreed to meet the Roundtable regularly and, with QCOSS, should be his main reference body. He also agreed that the Roundtable develop a State Budget. This budget has now been finalised. We are to meet the new Minister this month. Throughout the year we have continued our campaign for better community transport, and as a part of the Ministerial Road Safety Advisory Committee we have battled for the rights of older drivers. From the Police Task Force on Crime against Seniors we have continued to work for the safety of both youth and aged and are producing a video with the Police Department on helping police work with older people. OPSO has played an active role in the election campaign throughout the year. We held a Speakout on the issues that are important to seniors with OWN early this year, and have constantly used the media to push these issues. The ABC radio, 4BC and all TV channels especially and the Courier Mail, the Redland Times and the Australian Senior have been our best supporters, although I have done many interviews have been done across all States on some of these issues. Mary Daly and I have both done political comments each week during the election campaign: Mary on the ABC while I have done mine on Ch 10 news. Our major thrust has been to expose the poverty of those on a single pension. This poverty was clearly indicated by the research report of the Commonwealth Government Office of Women. We continue our push for better financial support for grandparents bringing up grandchildren, and for solutions to the growing social problem of appropriate housing for low income seniors. On this we held a Speakout in November to begin a creative brainstorming of alternative housing and set up a reference group to work with Queensland Shelter. Another major issue we are addressing in our election campaign is the funding of nursing homes and Home and Community Care and the failure of the government to address the fact that present government indexation does not meet increasing costs of care or of building expansion . Nor has there been an announcement by either party two weeks before the election of any future planning to address this. In view of the huge increase in the ageing population to 23 percent of the population in the next 30 years, with a big part of this increase now under way, we have a right to be concerned. The industry had asked us to help push their case. OPSO receives phone calls from relatives and from residents in nursing homes every week, appeals for us to do something to address the high shortage of nurses and nursing staff, that result in such abuses as no time for toileting and the unnecessary use of nappies and lack of regular changing of these, poor and/or inadequate food, the need for relatives to be there to ensure feeding, lack of nursing care through lack of staff and the consequences of this, and boredom though lack of funding to employ diversional therapists. Home and Community Care funding has failed to keep up
with the growing needs of an ageing population with only an average
of 10 minutes care now given to bath and dress a day. A report in the media that about 50 percent of older patients in hospital are not eating properly led us to meet with three major hospitals to set up a volunteer feeding programme. As a result a pilot programme is being organised within these major hospitals. Pixie Annat is working on this for us. OPSO did the publicity campaign on the new state government initiative for grandparents that enables eligible grandparents and grandchildren to go to special camps, and also to have the costs met for after school and holiday activities and school camps. Supervision of QUT university student research….a time consuming but rewarding task for 9 of our members, speeches for different community functions have kept us busy as usual, but the results are always well worth the effort. I spoke at the World Elder Abuse Day function at Parliament House, and also on elder abuse at the Nursing Home conference, as well as at number of events including Australia Day at Kingaroy, the ARAFMI conference and various Transport conferences. Our Writers Club has continued on gamely while co-ordinator Ilma Ferguson took time off because of illness You can’t keep a good group down. Our positive ageing campaign through the Media Awards and People’s Choice Awards is a major project. The awards take a tremendous amount of organisation but enthusiastic members and great team of judges have led to important outcomes in terms of media awareness and support, as well as in change of public attitude towards ageing. The Awards this year were held at the new Auditorium and Terrace at the State Library at Southbank, part of the new Contemporary Art Gallery, building. They were voted the best Awards yet in every respect by the record number of attendees. We have leaned a lot, and have also gained Tess and Grant Dobinsom and Kendall Hunt who will add their strength to ours next year. Anne Carlsson was her usual tower of strength, as, of course was Tracey Douglas, Alan Hales, Harry Garlick, Barbara Garlick, Maida Lilley,Dulcie Currion and Ilma Ferguson, Maree Lubach, Florence Nixon, Mary Daly and Marjorie Green, Ernie Harrison, Bill Benson, June and John Jane, Mary Studen and Brenda Murnane. Some helped as organizers, others as OPSO judges. However, our special thanks must go to Tony Townsend for all his hard work with the power-point presentation and his work organising the People’s Choice and School’s Awards.. We thank all the judges who each year work for nothing but our gratitude at the huge task of judging over 1500 nominations. OPSO is grateful to Trina McLellen who works with us as the wonderful friend she is, always ready to help. Thanks to Phil Castle, Patsy McCarthy, Ernestine Levalle, from QUT, Ray Goodey, from Quest. Roger Patching from Bond University. We held our first multicultural function this year with a Dance Extravaganza organized by OPSO and the Ethnic Women’s Network. Held in the evening during Seniors Week this event aimed to bring all cultures together to dance together, share their national food and to generally have laughter and fun…and it really worked. We are already planning another for next year….even though some of the dances stretched our bones with the unaccustomed movements and lots of laughter. We have continued our campaign for better community transport across the state but the process is slow with the usual bogged down policy development used as an excuse for inaction on what is obviously a major need. At present we are doing case history investigations into what happens when illness leads to the end of driving, the assessment processes and the problems for those not close to alternative transport. Our representation on numerous government advisory committees and the support of the media have helped move some of the mountains of need among seniors this year. We are grateful to the members of the Police Department, the Department of Communities and the Transport Department, for having me represent older people, and for the health committees who invite our vice president Maida Lilley to represent older consumers. We also thank Harry Garlick who in spite of major illness is completing the new edition of Fun for the Frail and Frisky. We are especially grateful to the media for all their
help and media exposure this year. This is what makes OPSO work well
in bringing about change. To the OPSO sponsors: thank you so much …we could not work without you. Special thanks go to all the members of the management Committee for all their work this year, and to all the members of the OPSO who have come forward and worked and done their bit to make our organisation work. OPSO has no staff. We rely on those who join us to offer their skills to make OPSO work We deliberately keep our Forum numbers limited to those who are prepared to help. The organisation is a partnership of friends who work together. To all of you, thank you for a great OPSO year. – Val French, |
