Pat’s Senior Citizens Home proprietor Patricia Moxey
“They let the bill run up,” Ms Moxey said. “And if the person happens to pass away they say ‘oh after the funeral I’ll sort you out.” She added but “you’ll never hear from them again.”
Despite the unpaid bills, Ms Moxey said she cannot bring herself to turn elderly residents away, particularly when some are too vulnerable to understand what is happening.
“We can't just take the people and throw them out,” she said. “I feel as if they're doing this now then that means they can’t properly take care of their loved ones.”
In some cases, Ms Moxey said, families have secretly arranged for elderly relatives to be transferred to the gerontology ward at Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre to avoid settling their outstanding bills.
Pat’s Senior Citizens Home has more than 40 residents, about 15 per cent of whom have families who fail to pay their accommodation fees, Ms Moxey said.
Some residents are bedridden, diabetic or in fragile health, while others are unable to understand that their families have stopped paying for their care.
Ms Moxey said some residents have authorised their National Insurance benefits to be deposited into family members’ accounts, leaving the home without payment for their accommodation.
“They probably have a joint account with family members,” she said.
Her account of the home’s financial difficulties comes after Parliament passed the Older Persons Rights, Protection, Care and Support Bill, 2026, last week.
The legislation seeks to strengthen protections for elderly people, including by placing a general duty on next of kin to help ensure older relatives have an appropriate standard of living. This includes access to safe housing, adequate food and water, clothing and other essentials, as well as necessary healthcare and long-term or palliative care.
The bill also seeks to address financial exploitation through a specific offence covering the improper or dishonest use, control or withholding of an older person’s money, property, pension, NIB benefits or other resources.
The offence would carry a fine of up to $50,000, up to five years’ imprisonment, or both.
Financial exploitation could include taking an older person’s benefits without using the money for their welfare, preventing them from accessing their funds, making unauthorised withdrawals, forging documents or coercing them into transferring property or changing a will.
The proposed law would also allow authorities to require people suspected of financial exploitation to produce receipts and records showing how an older person’s money was spent. Police, the NIB or another relevant authority could investigate suspected cases.
People formally authorised to manage an older person’s affairs would face additional accountability requirements. Such authorisation would have to be given freely, in writing, without coercion and witnessed by an independent person.