FEDERAL Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot's statement that an extra 3000 inspections of nursing homes and police checks of employees will ensure the frail, aged and vulnerable will be protected is simply bureaucratic jabbering at its best (Courier Mail, Mar 24).

The Office of Aged Care Quality and Compliance and the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency are, like many of the nursing homes they inspect, often hopelessly under-resourced even now, let alone without being burdened with an additional 3000 inspections.

Inspections of what? Quality control systems, tomes of nicely arranged pieces of paper sitting in filing cabinets closely guarded by directors of nursing who espouse all the proper buzzwords and recite mission statements while proudly putting on a display of glossy parchment for prearranged ``inspections''.

Under the current methods of scrutiny even the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps would have been accredited had they possessed the correct quality control systems.

As a society we delude ourselves we will never grow old enough, or infirm enough, to require nursing home care, so we don't plan for it. Yet, thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, this is precisely what is happening to us. As much as I am reluctant to debunk the delusion of government concern, most of us are going to grow old, and then we are going to be neglected.

We can choose to believe our Minister for Ageing, and naively accept our fate, or die younger. I leave it to the reader to make their choice, although, if you have not already done so, it would be advisable to acquaint yourself with nursing home care first.

Source: The Courier Mail, Talking Point, [Crispin Walters, Chapel Hill]