The challenges and fears faced by less ordinary Australians will be laid bare next week as the aged care royal commission sets out to expose how the existing system is failing.
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The inquiry will resume public hearings in Melbourne on Monday, with a focus on how aged care providers are coping, or not, with diversity among older Australians.
People from wildly different backgrounds and circumstances will tell the commission there must be a seismic shift away from a one-size-fits-all approach, because it simply doesn't.
Among them will be 68-year-old Elizabeth Karn, a profoundly deaf woman who says her experiences with aged care have left her feeling broken and isolated.
She will tell the commission that a lack of funding for interpreters has seriously affected the quality of her life, a reality shared by her deaf friends.
"We feel excluded, neglected, and now isolated because of our disability and age. Where do we belong?" she will say.
"When are we going to be included and accepted as valued Australian citizens?"
The inquiry will be told Australia needs a sophisticated system that can cope with everyone, from war veterans suffering PTSD, to those who've been homeless, and people of all sexual orientations.
The National LGBTI Health Alliance says sexual discrimination is alive and well in the aged care sector and that must change.
"We know many services still say 'oh we don't have any of those people here'," says Samantha Edmonds, who manages the alliance's aged-care program Silver Rainbow.
"But they are there, they are hidden and not openly out to providers because those providers are not inclusive, they are not culturally safe."
Ms Edmonds says stories of discrimination persist, with one woman in aged care told not to kiss her lesbian partner because it would make others in the facility feel uncomfortable.
"Just kiss on the cheek (she was told). She wasn't allowed to openly show affection to her partner.
"And we had one experience with a trans elder whose children didn't support the way they dressed, so the provider dressed them the way their children wanted.
"It's about understanding that this history has had an impact on them, and that you need to be sensitive to what people want and how you support them."
Australian Associated Press
