Call for Government to increase funding for monitored medical alarms

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A national alarm company is calling on the Government to increase funding to cover costs for remote medical alarm monitoring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Securely.nz General Manager Mark Smith statistics suggest says 1 in 3 seniors fall each year at home and of that 60% spend an average of 12 hours on the ground before they are discovered.

Currently MSD fund a basic panic alarm under the disability allowance, however, we also know that only 20% of people who have a medical alarm use it to call for help.

“The kiwi stoic attitude unfortunately prevents many seniors from calling for help as they don’t want to be a burden to others,” said Mark Smith.

We now have software available that monitors a person’s activity day and night and sends an alert to our 24/7 monitored call centre and the family if a sensor isn’t activated after a set amount of time.

“What we’re asking for is a loosening of the requirements so people now living in isolation have access to higher functioning medical alarm and it’s not restricted to just those already on the disability allowance”.

Source: Securely.nz media release, 23 March 2020

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