MAKING HISTORY: THE ROAD TO A BETTER FUTURE
COUNTRY WISE SUPPORTS AGED CARE IN REGIONAL AUSTRALIA A NEW CAMPAIGN FROM STANDARDS WISE AUSTRALIA
T
he Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveal that there is a large portion of older Australians living in rural and remote areas where healthcare is impacted due to limited accessibility to a skilled workforce combined with significant budget constraints. Now Country Wise—a new campaign from Standards Wise Australia (SWA)—is digging deep into the legendary Australian spirit of regional and remote communities, to get individuals working together and provide better health outcomes for the community. Country Wise is designed to harness the collective willpower, tenacity, know-how, experience, and resources of health and aged care providers around regional and remote areas of Australia. Our aim is to enable and support aged care providers to create a collaborative and effective system to ensure they can remain operational to support their local communities. The initiative aims to assist aged care and health providers to create a more sustainable model for ageing services and achieve health outcomes in the face of significant fiscal stress, fragmentation, migration of younger people and the skilled workforce, and disillusionment of the community—enabling older people to age well in rural and remote areas. We strive to encourage local facilities to pool their ideas and resources and promote succeeding together rather than struggling alone. We do not want local residents to be displaced from communities; we want to ensure it is possible to stay within their region. It is vital for our regional and remote communities that services for older people flourish and become more sustainable to avoid concentration of services in metropolitan areas, forcing dislocation of older people from their chosen communities. Community sovereignty is important to preserve, recognising the tremendous effort made by community members over
56
