NATION'S ELDERLY SHORT-CHANGED

"Illegal immigrants get better care than the aged, says Jack Holder"

Peter Van Onselen's column on nursing home funding versus hospital funding should be read by all politicians, it was so true ("Aged care is the real elephant in the room" 'Sunday Mail' 04/04/2010). If we fixed up the nursing home mess, it would go a long way to fixing our hospital funding.

Australia spends billions of dollars catching, housing, feeding and processing illegal migrants. It costs up to $100,000 a year to keep a prisoner in jail. Then a pensioner, who has paid taxes for 50 years and may have fought for this country, may have to sell their house to pay the bond to go into a nursing home.

If the time comes when I may have to go into a nursing home, and to save my wife the trauma of finding the money, I would be tempted to get on a boat and head for Christmas Island, or commit a crime. Then I would be housed and fed for nothing, and my wife could still come and visit me.

At 85 years of age we do not need these worries.

Jack Holder, Seaford, South Australia.

Jack Holder (at left), aged 85 of Seaford was a World War ll digger. The former plumber lied about his age to join the army and he was swiftly trained in using explosives. Jack has written a book about his experiences, which is held by the West Torrens Historical Society. The youngest in his unit, Jack later served in Darwin and New Guinea, at Bougainville, and he was in Wewak when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945. He then had to wait six months for a ship to be available to return his unit to Australia. He was demobbed from the army in May 1946, just before his 22nd birthday.

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