President’s Message

By Vasi Naganathan

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the July Newsletter, it is a great privilege to present my first President’s message. Against the backdrop of ongoing COVID-19 challenges and the Government’s Royal Commission response our work at ANZSGM continues to grow.

A big thank you firstly to John Maddison for his leadership as our President for the last two years during these unprecedented times. I have worked closely with John in the handover process over the past months and have greatly valued his guidance and advice. He has left me feeling energised about my two years ahead as I step into his shoes.  

I would like to acknowledge the hard work and ingenuity of the organising committee of our ASM held in Melbourne in May. They successfully arranged our first hybrid (face to face and virtual) meeting and it is likely to be the format for meetings moving forward. Plans are well under way for next year’s meeting in Perth in 2022. 

The Australian Government’s response to the Final Report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was released in February  2021. Take  a look at recommendation 58 which states that Australian and State and Territory Governments should introduce Local Hospital Network-led multidisciplinary outreach services, it’s worth noting the detail. The Government’s response was that they ‘accept-in-principle’ this recommendation, but we have to push to make it a reality. Some geriatric medicine departments already have well-developed models up and running, proof that this can be achieved if resources are provided and there is genuine will at a state and federal government level.

It’s also worth noting that the recently released report by the AMA entitled ‘Putting Health Care Back in Aged Care’ recommends the introduction of hospital aged care outreach teams in all local health networks, in coordination with a patient’s usual GP –  a view we are in sync with. I can see the attraction of the goals of preventing hospital admissions as the main way to ‘sell’ outreach models of care in the community and residential care but we don’t say this for any other group of people in our community. “Right treatment in the right place to the right people” would be my preferred mantra – a wiser person than I told me this.

The Federal Government in their response to the Royal Commission have once again raised the possibility of abolishing state-run Aged Care Assessment teams (ACAT). ANZSGM believes Aged Care Assessment needs to remain with state health services for many reasons including the fact that ACATs need to have direct access to geriatric medicine multidisciplinary teams. Approximately 50 per cent of ACAT assessments are done on inpatients. It is hard to imagine this can be done well by an entity from outside the hospital. We are at a crossroads and need to be advocating strongly for and continue to be developing services in the community and residential care or risk future geriatrician-led services being restricted to mainly acute and subacute hospital care. The pioneer geriatricians who built up these services will be unimpressed if we let this happen! Mind you, we might as well dominate hospital care as well.

Disruption due to COVID is never far away. No sooner has Melbourne got out of lock down, Sydney is facing a similar situation. Many geriatricians in Australia and New Zealand are influencing health’s response to the pandemic. The challenge for ANZSGM is to find a way to support these people and become a vehicle by which ideas can be exchanged. We need to remain vigilant in trying to influence government policies and plans to prevent and deal with COVID outbreaks, particularly in residential aged care. On a personal level I acknowledge that this has been a particularly tough time for our members who have family and friends in countries where COVID has been far worse than in Australia and New Zealand. Our thoughts are with you.

The Perioperative Special Interest Group continues to achieve things at a rate of knots thanks to the leadership of a clever and hard-working group of geriatricians. I am sure many of you will find the discussions about how perioperative services are being developed in Australia and New Zealand and how geriatricians are practicing perioperative medicine interesting. If you are interested in joining the SIG please email communications@anzsgm.org for details. Stay tuned for a plan to develop a Residential Care SIG.

As most of you know Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) legislations are either being passed or being debated by state governments. An Expressions of Interest for formation of a VAD working group from members of the Society is now open. The group will develop a Society position and policy on the key considerations on VAD in older populations. The process will aim to capture a diversity of views from a broad representation of membership.

ANZSGM is now a formal member of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG). Changes had to be made to allow for membership of an association that spanned two countries.

I look forward to working with our Council as we continue to advocate for the work of geriatricians and improve the way we support our members. But what I am most excited about in my role as President is the opportunity for a lot of chats with as many of you as a possible to understand more about the diversity of geriatric medicine practice in Australia and New Zealand and your views of where we should be heading.