Government urged not to be short-sighted on funding

For more than a decade the responsibility for a funded equipment program has been shuffled between state and federal governments, and between portfolios in health, ageing and disabilities, and has finally fallen between the gaps of aged care and disability reforms, according to the Macular Degeneration Foundation.

In collaboration with the George Institute for Global Health, the foundation has produced a report highlighting the inadequacies and inequalities of the funding system, which allows eligible people aged under 65 non means-tested, free access to aids and technologies through the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but excludes people who experience vision loss after 65.

These people are dealt with through the aged care system, which is not funded or designed to provide the supports needed by people with disability.

Foundation chief executive Julie Heraghty said low vision aids, ranging from a simple magnifier or specialised lighting, through to adaptive technology, can transform the lives of people with sight loss.

“Currently, some people in Australia with sight loss have great difficulty affording or accessing these aids,” Ms Heraghty said. “This needs to change.”

She said these people had fallen through the cracks because the system was inequitable and random. The primary barrier was cost.

The foundation wants a nationally funded program to subsidise low-vision aids and technologies, estimating it would cost $30 million a year to meet the needs of people who need financial help to buy the aids.

Ms Heraghty said the foundation was not asking the federal government to immediately put down $30 million but was saying: “We’ve done the hard work now let’s look at where we go from here”.

Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said the government assistance for a variety of aids and supports for people with various disabilities, including low vision, was too low and poorly co-ordinated.

“Too many people fall between large commonwealth/state cracks,” he said. “This needs to be addressed as a key aspect of aged care reform.

“It is very short-sighted (no pun intended) for government not to do more in this space, as keeping people at home and active in community saves all levels of government lots of money.”

The George Institute report gives an example of brothers Tom and Ted.

Tom is independently wealthy and has age-related macular degeneration (AMD). He became legally blind at age 64 and has a fully-funded NDIS package for life with a simplified system for assessment and allocation of support.

This package is received as an entitlement to pay for magnifiers, an electronic magnifier, a computer with a big screen and ZoomText software.

Ted, his 66-year-old brother, is a single pensioner living in a small regional town. He managed his limited income well during his working years and has paid for private health insurance all his life.

Ted was diagnosed with early macular degeneration at age 54. By the time he had turned 61, the progressive nature of the disease resulted in Ted requiring ongoing injections into the eye to save his vision.

This was effective until Ted was 66, when he experienced a massive retinal bleed and rapid vision deterioration. He was declared legally blind four months later.

Ted urgently needed training about mobility and some low-vision technologies such as magnifiers, a text reader and an electronic magnifier to enable him to stay in his own home, maintain independence and quality of life.

His health insurance, as is the case for many private insurers, provided no benefit for the $8000 he needed to spend, nor was he able to obtain funding through the aged care system to buy the required services or equipment.