With one in five hospital patients waiting for discharge to aged care and a rapidly ageing population, NSW’s Illawarra region desperately requires new beds – yet operators say there is no ROI on building beds and they are turning their focus to retirement living.

Across the country, thousands of older Australians remain stranded in hospital beds because there’s nowhere else for them to go.

As we reported in The Weekly SOURCE this week, nearly 2,500 elderly patients are medically ready for discharge but stuck in hospital due to a lack of aged care places – the equivalent of 21 full 120-bed homes.