"Home care packages" for the

elderly  have been much on my mind in recent days.
Some time ago the GP ordered a new ACAT (Aged Care Assessment Team) visit for the Senior Cat. This was to see whether there was anything new he needed and whether he would be eligible for a place in an aged care facility.
As I expected nothing has come of this visit. It is thought we are "coping". We don't want the Senior Cat to go into care if we can avoid it and the sort of help he needs is not the sort that can be readily provided by any sort of "home care package".  It looks as if  he will continue to be provided with help to shower three times a week. For the rest  it will be up to us - mostly Middle Cat and myself.
His great friend K... now has Alzheimer's and is being cared for by his wife. K is 91 and his wife is 89. They live near their daughter. She works full time but the government package they get works in such a way that she is still expected to provide assistance for them and for her  husband's in-laws. Her husband does help and help more than many do but it is still difficult for them. In other words    the government is relying on families to "do the right thing" and care for their own.
I have no argument that it is the responsibility of family to care for each other. Our clan is close knit and we do just that. It is not simply parents and children but siblings and cousins who care for each other. While it may not be constant or consistent they are there and, in an emergency, they will help. 
I do however have an issue with people who have worked all their lives and paid taxes not being able to get assistance at all. I also have an issue with others being expected to give up their own careers to care for members of their family because there is no assistance available even if they are prepared to pay for it.
Two years ago an elderly friend had heart surgery. She lives alone. Her home is not far from ours. 
Her daughter lives several hundred kilometres away in a small town where she is the local nurse. There is no doctor there and of course no hospital either. She has been very good about travelling  backwards and forwards to see and help her mother. As her mother is no longer allowed to drive the neighbours and I have been helping out with shopping. Her mother gets a taxi to go to the doctor. The neighbour they have been paying to clean and help her with her laundry is leaving. The other neighbours work and do not want to help in this way. 
Her son is a doctor who works very long hours in another rural community. He does what he can too.
Trying to get her the help she needs seems almost impossible. 
    "All we can suggest is that you live with your daughter or that your daughter comes to live here," she was told. I have seen the letter in which that suggestion was made. 
It in no way takes into account that her daughter is married and that her own children live and work in the community surrounding the small town. It does not take into account the need for regular visits to the GP and to the cardiac specialist. 
    "I could cope Cat if they would provide someone to clean and help with the sheets a couple of hours a fortnight even." She probably could. It isn't a lot to ask for someone who was widowed young, brought up two children alone and paid taxes all her life. She will be expected to pay for the help she receives but it needs to be provided through the aged care system so that she is not relying on private individuals. Of course she might be lucky and get an "angel" who really does care but it is unlikely. She needs to have a package that can be relied on.
There is something so very, very wrong about all this.