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Margaret Duckett calls for an end to “benevolent paternalism” in aged care during COVID-19

By February 9, 2021February 9th, 2022No Comments
Ahead of the final report from The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, which was released this week, Seniors Rights Service President Margaret Duckett wrote an opinion piece for The Australian newspaper, which was published on Wednesday, February 24.

In a strongly worded article, headlined “Humanity and rights must be at heart of aged care”, Margaret describes the aged care system as broken and calls for a human-centred approach and an end to a “paternalistic and inflexible system”.

She says human rights have been ignored during the pandemic when older people are isolated in aged care facilities, unable to be with families or friends.

“As a community, we have to get the balance right. COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon. We have to find ways of protecting the health and human rights of our older citizens in care.”

Seniors Rights Service worked on seven submissions to the Royal Commission, six with other organisations and one of our own.

Read our solo submission here

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