An 80-year-old Perth woman with multiple sclerosis is among 75 clients who will lose their home care services after MSWA said it could no longer afford to run the Commonwealth-funded Support at Home program.
Marlene Robinson, a former City of Bayswater councillor and staffer to former Western Australia Premier Geoff Gallop, has lived with MS for 30 years. She has no movement in her legs and limited use of her arms, and depends on support workers for essential personal care such as being helped out of bed to shower and dress.
"I can't do that myself, the arms aren't working too well," Ms Robinson said.
Her husband, former anthropologist Michael Robinson, 86, said the care met their basic daily needs. "Whereas if we were just doing it on our own, we probably couldn't do it," he said.
The couple recently received a letter from MSWA telling them the organisation would stop providing Support at Home services, which are designed to help older people remain at home rather than move into residential aged care. Sixteen of the affected clients live in regional areas.
MSWA said the federal government's aged care changes last year, which replaced the Home Care Packages program with Support at Home, had excessively increased costs and administrative burden to unsustainable levels. Chief executive Melanie Kiely said the program brought in "a lot more administration, a lot more regulation".
"We understand the pain of this and that is something we want to work with (clients) to transition," she said. "Having said that we've kept our prices down so low for so long and we just cannot do it sustainably any longer."
MSWA charges $60 an hour for weekday personal care, half the market average of $125 an hour, meaning clients face a doubling of the hourly rate. Ms Robinson said she would be able to afford much less care for her basic needs.
"I don't know what I'll do without it," she said. "When I think about it, I sort of stop. I can't think about the horrific future."
MSWA said it was not abandoning its clients and would continue providing specialist neurological services.