Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMA President - Radio 2SM, with Howard Sattler

PHELPS: I'm well. How are you?

SATTLER: Thanks for joining us. On the other line listening to what you're about to say is the Chief Executive Officer of Aged Community Care, Greg Mundy. Hello, Greg.

MUNDY: Good morning.

SATTLER: Kerryn, should we be worrying about whether people in aged care have inadequate opportunities for sexual contact? I mean, how many of those people would be even interested in it?

PHELPS: I think we should be very concerned about separating partners who have been together for a long time when one of them becomes unable to look after themselves, and we should also be very concerned about the loss of intimacy and individuality of people because they become old and less physically able. I think that an example of this - and the fact that the aged care sector needs to come into the new century - is that there is very little partner accommodation for people, and part of the terror of going into an aged care facility is being isolated from your partner or feeling as if you are going to be destined to be alone for the rest of your life, however long that might be.

SATTLER: But are we just talking about no double beds, that sort of thing, is that part of it?

PHELPS: Certainly partner accommodation. I had some contact from aged care facilities just yesterday who said that in their facility they have a male wing and a female wing and that if partners come into, like a husband and wife come into their facility, the husband has to go down one end of the nursing home and the wife has to do down the other. Now, this at the most vulnerable time of their lives I think is inhumane.

SATTLER: It's like boarding school for boys and girls, isn't it?

PHELPS: It is and it's just sort of - it's Jurassic Park stuff.

SATTLER: Okay. But I just come back to it, when you talk about intimacy are you talking about sex?

PHELPS: Why not?

SATTLER: How many of these people would be interested in that at this age?

PHELPS: I think that's their business. But if they want to cuddle up at night and maintain the intimacy of their relationship then it's nobody else's business.

SATTLER: All right. One of the people who runs these places invited you to go and visit the range of their homes, and they say they do manage to have couples together. Will you take up that offer?

PHELPS: Sure. I mean I'm happy to go and visit a number of different facilities, but certainly the feedback that we've been having through the aged care sector is that there is precious little accommodation that enables people to stay together.

SATTLER: What do you say to that, Greg Mundy?

MUNDY: I'm fully in support of Kerryn's views on this issue. I think…

SATTLER: So, fair criticism, is it?

MUNDY: What I was going to say is that I think it's very important to look at maintaining the most homelike environment that's possible in residential care, which includes the ability of couples who have been together maybe for four or five decades to stay together. There are examples around Australia where that is possible and is done. But, as Kerry says, there are lots of places where it's not possible.

SATTLER: Why isn't it possible?

MUNDY: I think there's a range of issues. There are issues to do with the design of buildings, there are issues to do with changing people's attitudes, there are issues to do with how it's paid for, and things like that.

SATTLER: Are a lot of these places designed like dormitories, are they?

MUNDY: Well, they're designed like nursing homes, which means they often have, certainly in older places, multi-bedrooms rather than single rooms. But certainly the newer places are all being built pretty much as single rooms with en suites. But I know a number of places that do encourage couples to stay together. But I agree with Kerryn, there should be more of it.

SATTLER: The older places, what do you do about them? I mean, do you just let them go until they move on to other facilities there? I mean are they going to stay like that for decades?

MUNDY: There is a requirement to redevelop those older facilities with multi-bedrooms anyway. The Government has set a deadline of 2008 for that to occur. The thing that slows it down, of course, is that it does cost money to build facilities.

SATTLER: So some of these people are going to have to wait for seven years to be intimate, are they?

MUNDY: The average length of stay, as you'd probably be aware, is a lot shorter than that. Look, promoting that sort of flexible person centred thinking in residential care is very much something that the industry is on about. At our national conference later this year, we're getting out one of the world's experts or luminaries in this field, a guy called Doctor Guy Thomas from the United States, who promotes a particular concept called the Eden Alternative, which is all about making residential care for older people as pleasant and as much like an ordinary living environment as possible, and the reason we're getting him out here is to promote those sort of ideas through the industry.

SATTLER: What do you think about these old folk and some of them still have needs to be intimate, sexually intimate, is that okay?

MUNDY: Well, I agree with Kerryn's comment on that, I think that's their business. But I think it's the business of the industry to provide for people's needs as much as is possible.

SATTLER: It's pretty hard if you're living in a dormitory style environment, isn't it?

MUNDY: Dormitory is a bit of an exaggeration, you won't find anywhere that's got more than four bedrooms, and thankfully they're getting a less common.

SATTLER: Four beds to a room?

MUNDY: Yes, those aren't…

SATTLER: How could you be intimate with your partner if there's three other people in the room?

MUNDY: Well, it would be difficult. It's a question of personal choice. I mean, we do have places that make available adjoining single rooms to couples with interconnecting doors. Talking to proprietors, they say often you find that the couple will prefer to have one bed in each room because actually that's what they did at home. But that's a very much a matter of personal choice.

SATTLER: Sure. Well, as long as they have that. Lady and gentleman, thank you for joining us.

PHELPS: Thank you.

MUNDY: A pleasure.

Ends