SA Govt acts as 375 older Australians await aged care
The South Australian Government, which goes to the polls on 21 March, is expanding its Transition Care Service by 50 beds.
The move follows the introduction of the 48-bed Pullman Hotel Transition Care Service in Adelaide's CBD, which has discharged almost 600 people in the 11 months since it began.
However, the latest State Government figures show 375 people occupying hospital beds waiting for a place in residential aged care.
The Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN) will phase in the additional beds from March 2026, in partnership with Medibank-owned Amplar Health, operator of the Pullman Hotel service.
The new service will be delivered at College Grove in Walkerville, 5km north of the Adelaide CBD, a respite facility owned by retirement village and home care operator ECH and currently vacant. Amplar Health will lease about two-thirds of the property.
The new Transition Care Service will run for an initial two years, with the option to increase to 70 beds and extend for a further two years.
Amplar Health Chief Executive Robert Read said: “This service reflects the health transition Australia’s system needs – moving away from a one-size-fits-all hospital model toward smarter, more flexible models of care that deliver the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
“Following its success, we’re excited by the opportunity to extend this model and support more South Australians to transition safely and confidently out of hospital.”
The South Australian Government called for tenders for two new short-term stay program in November last year, looking to expand the Transition Care Service program.
SA Health Minister Chris Picton said at the time it was “a national tragedy” that older Australians are “languishing in hospital beds because of a severe shortage of Federal Government aged care beds”.
The Transition Care Service provides intermediate care, delivering services between acute hospital and community living in a safe and appropriate facility with trained healthcare staff. The service is often used by those awaiting aged care placements, needing convalescent care, NDIS planning or pre-and-post-operative care.
Other States are also ramping up transition care services, including Western Australia’s Time to Think and NSW’s Hospital in the Home program.
