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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/08/people-are-dying-waiting-for-a-house-how-australias-healthcare-system-leaves-rough-sleepers-with-nowhere-to-turn>
"Nigel Pernu knows all too well the damage homelessness wreaks on a person’s
health.
He slept rough for six months after six heart attacks left him hospitalised
long-term in Adelaide, leading to an opioid addiction.
“You’re constantly worrying about where you’re going to sleep,” he says. “It
puts a strain on your body. It also increases stress levels, cortisol levels,
gives you high blood pressure and weakens your immune system as well.
“And if you don’t have a mental health condition or addiction before you’re
homeless, it’s no doubt that you will after you’ve experienced homelessness.
People’s lives feel like they’re falling apart and there’s nothing else to do
but take substances, that’s why people do it.”
Pernu now uses his experience as a peer worker for cohealth, which runs a
healthcare service for rough sleepers and other disadvantaged groups in
Melbourne. His job is to build trust, encouraging people experiencing
homelessness to open up about their problems so they can be referred to a team
of allied health workers.
But specialised services of the kind offered by cohealth are both rare and
operating on a fee-for-service funding model that fails to adequately cover the
longer, low-volume consults needed in this type of healthcare.
“They are few and far between and they’re all struggling like we are to deliver
the care the way it needs to be delivered, and to be able to make ends meet,”
says cohealth’s chief executive, Nicole Bartholomeusz.
Frontline workers are warning that the underfunding of these services and lack
of emergency housing for chronically ill rough sleepers are leading to
preventable and premature deaths."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
