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ABC News reports that the “integrated model of care for responding to suspected elder abuse” (IMOC) was based on some of the 227 recommendations by Victoria's 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence.
IMOC embedded 10 elder abuse specialists, counsellors, and financial counsellors within the health system at Melbourne Health, Latrobe Community Health, Monash Health, Western Health, and Peninsula Health.
IMOC, described by the government as a “lapsing initiative” will now be defunded, but said that support would remain.
Sudhir, an IMOC counsellor says "We are having to discharge clients that still have high needs or refer them to organisations that don't have specialist capacity to deal with elder abuse," he said.
"It's diabolical."
Jenni Dickson, the executive manager of community support services at Better Place Australia, which runs some of the IMOC programs, said "They're replacing a specialist service with a generalist one and that's completely ignoring the needs of older people," she said.
Nationals MP Melina Bath told parliament in June that one IMOC service provider had seen more than 1,200 clients, with wait lists of eight to 12 weeks.
Victoria's Minister for Ageing, Lizzie Blandthorn, said there were many lessons from the IMOC trial.
"In the view of government, it is most definitely time to integrate our services, and provide a broader approach to family violence services across the board," she said.
"We need to be very clear here that counselling and mediation services including financial counselling will remain in the areas that will no longer be serviced by these lapsing initiatives."
Seniors Rights Victoria, the organisation that runs a dedicated helpline, said it was also facing budget cuts. Chief executive, Chris Potaris, said the organisation would lose $1 million over the next four years.
He said the organisation would have to cut the number of people answering the helpline from four to one.
"We will essentially have one human being addressing a statewide helpline," he said.
He said the volume of calls had increased by about 70 per cent in the past year — from about 3,500 in 2021-22 to 5,400 in 2022-23.
"And from January this year, we've seen an increase in about 1,000 calls on top of that," he said.
He said he was concerned older people would be left in dangerous situations without help.
"It's going to have a profound impact on people."
There is also concern the government is abandoning two advocacy roles: the Commissioner for Senior Victorians and the Ambassador for Elder Abuse Prevention.
Gerard Mansour held both roles until April 2023, but he has not been replaced.