An elderly woman who suffered devastating injuries in a fall has been forced to permanently relocate over 120 kilometres from her family and friends due to a critical shortage of aged care facilities in her Queensland town.
A Devastating Fall and Impossible Choice
Draginia Johnstone's 88-year-old mother endured a life-changing fall earlier this year, resulting in four broken bones including her neck, hip, pelvis and back. After spending 35 days in a Gladstone hospital north of Brisbane, medical staff delivered another crushing blow: she would need to move into an aged-care centre for ongoing support.
The family's search for appropriate care quickly revealed a systemic failure in the region's elderly care infrastructure. Despite Gladstone being home to approximately 45,000 residents, none of the town's four aged care centres had available beds.
The closest available facility was located in Biloela - 121 kilometres away from her support network and familiar surroundings. Even securing this distant placement came with an extraordinary financial burden that required the family to sell the elderly woman's home to afford the $400,000 down payment.
A Family's Repeated Trauma and Systemic Failure
Disturbingly, this isn't the first time the Johnstone family has faced this heartbreaking situation. Ms Johnstone revealed that her father experienced the exact same forced relocation twenty years earlier in 2005 after falling ill, highlighting how longstanding this crisis has been.
"We've got an ageing population, we've been aware of this for quite some time," Ms Johnstone told the Courier Mail. She expressed frustration that despite government messaging about preparing for older age, essential infrastructure for elderly care has been neglected.
"This is how our government is making our elderly finish their life off and it is sickening to me," she added, conveying the emotional toll this separation has taken on her family.
Political Standoff Amid Growing Crisis
The situation in Gladstone reflects a broader crisis affecting Queensland and potentially the entire nation. Currently, more than 1,100 medically fit patients in Queensland hospitals are classified as 'long-stay patients' who cannot be discharged because there's no available space in aged care centres or NDIS accommodation.
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has joined forces with other state and territory leaders to pressure the federal government into increasing public hospital funding. Mr Crisafulli argues that providing adequate aged care funding is the responsibility of the Commonwealth and that sufficient money exists to address the problem.
However, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has resisted these calls, urging leaders to curb what he describes as unsustainable growth in funding demands. This leaves the previously agreed funding share arrangement of 45% by 2035 in jeopardy, with the potential for the deal to revert to another one-year rollover that would fail to resolve the bed availability crisis.
Meanwhile, Ms Johnstone has abandoned hope that the situation will improve in time to help her own generation. With herself and her siblings now in their 60s, she fears they may face similar circumstances. Their only potential solution? To potentially buy land, build a home and hire a live-in nurse - an option far beyond the means of most Australian families.
