Senior Australians Concerned about Interpreting Costs under the CDC

The health care reform program for seniors is likely to deduct a big chunk from their home care package to pay for interpreting and translation costs, according to the advocates and providers’ report to Australian Ageing Agenda (AAA) Magazine.

The CDC allows older people and the people who care for them to have greater participation in choosing what type of care services they should receive and their delivery. Its aim is to drive the healthcare industry’s provision of services into a higher level of excellence. The CDC is to be introduced into residential care later by the government of Australia. The delivery of the program was put into trial in 2013 and 2014 and the trial will be evaluated this year to pinpoint the best possible method to implement the model program into residential facilities in the future.

The CDC will thus enable the consumers to have greater control over the type of medical care services they will receive, which is viewed as a means to overcome any barrier. However the issue of translation and interpreting costs for a Home Care Agreement to be passed on to consumers would create new problems.

The CEO of Australian Multicultural Community Services, Elizabeth Drozd said that the costs are too high, with one consumer getting an estimate of $3,000 to have the Home Care Agreement translated into Polish. That figure already amounts to 40 percent of the home care package subsidy’s Level 1.

Although the Australian Federal Government will fund the service providers’ use of the National Translating and Interpreting Services for major work flow processes, the government made it clear that it would not cover the cost for additional language support during the delivery of care and translation of important documents. This means that all additional costs outside of their packaged healthcare fund will be paid for by the consumers. The scheme is simply not fair, according to multicultural service providers.

The manager for business development at DutchCare, Penni Michael, told the AAA magazine that the scheme would diminish the value of the care packages of their linguistically and culturally diverse clients when compared to mainstream consumers. This is because a component of the home care package will be absorbed by the communication needs of a consumer who does not speak English, which effectively reduces the value of the package.

DutchCare and other advocacy and industry organizations like the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia or FECCA are pressing the Australian Government to fund the entire cost of translation and interpreting services outside of the home care package. FECCA pointed out that the document translation and even the interpretation of a document is still related to the program that is funded by the government.

Mary Patetsos who chairs the Healthy Ageing Reference Committee of FECCA said that if the government refused to fund it, then consumers would be compelled to make a decision on whether they want the service to be delivered versus choosing a service based on informed decisions.

Another officer, Eddie Micallef, the chairperson of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria believes that the plan contradicts the CDC’s principle of equity and access.

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