Pressure building for Govt to give carers more help

Photo / Thinkstock

Prime Minister John Key is coming under increasing pressure from carers to provide more assistance for their unpaid work.

Since the launch of the We Care campaign on May 23, he has received a flood of emails and other calls to action via postcards, Facebook, Twitter and photo messages at wecare.org.nz.

The campaign, organised by Carers NZ and the NZ Carers Alliance, is designed to raise awareness of the plight of about 420,000 New Zealanders who care for ill, seriously injured, elderly, or disabled family members or friends.

The campaign says carers are New Zealand's biggest health workforce, and their unpaid work is worth more than $7 billion a year.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair described carers the world over as "unsung heroes".

United States President Barack Obama, who supported his mother during her terminal illness, said: "I have seen what it's like when somebody you love is suffering because of a broken health care system. And it's wrong."

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has experience caring for a disabled child, told carers last week: "If you stopped doing what you are doing, the consequences for the country would be disastrous."

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said he has received emails as part of the We Care campaign and had sent an acknowledgement.

The spokeswoman said the Prime Minister did not have any personal experience of caring for someone who was ill or disabled.

The New Zealand not-for-profit organisations are concerned that the Carers' Strategy, launched in 2008 with a five-year Action Plan, has lost momentum because of budget constraints, restructurings, and health spending that is focused on facilities rather than community supports.

They say community-based care is unsustainable without first "caring for the carers".

The call comes against a background of a Government appeal against a High Court ruling on caregivers' rights. Nine families have been engaged in court action since 2009 seeking the right of disabled people to pay family for care.

The High Court backed a Human Rights Tribunal finding that the Health Ministry policy not to pay carers if they were relatives was discriminatory. The Government has spent $1.2 million defending the case.

Carers NZ chief executive Laurie Hilsgen said all New Zealanders could expect to give or receive care during their lives.

She said inadequate support for carers was forcing many out of their paid jobs which are in addition to their caring duties.

Parts of the Carer's Strategy needing work included progress towards a carers allowance as is provided in Australia and Britain.

Carers' other needs included access to information so carers of all ages knew what help was available, access to flexible, affordable, quality respite or ways to have a break and more flexibility for the modest Carer Support Subsidy to give carers more choices about how it could be used.