<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/31df2013-e703-4fc3-a8ea-8b9691002b3a/3F5DA715-90AC-4308-93ED-69170AA7543B/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory07n.htm" href="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory07n.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nenews.com.au</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nenews.com.au/Stories/chStory07n.htm"><P align="center"><DIV><FONT size="3" face="MS Sans Serif"><B>Funding concerns add to ongoing issues to retain nurses</B> </FONT></DIV> <FONT size="2" face="MS Sans Serif"> Written by <B>STEVEN BURKE</B>.</FONT> </P><P>A SHORTAGE of nurses and uncertainty over funding is stretching aged care providers to their limits, according to the head of one of Wangaratta’s biggest aged care providers.</p> <P>St John’s Village chief executive, Joe Caruso, has relayed his concerns to Sophie Mirabella (MHR, Indi), amid fears over the immediate future of the aged care industry.</p> <P>"<B>Our major concern regards the current Federal Government’s non-committal to an indexation (in funding) of 1.75 per cent in the May budget,</B>" Mr Caruso said.</p> <P>"<B>In the past, the Federal Government would notify us before the budget if we were going to get the funding but that has not happened this year.</B></p> <P><B>"<B>We are currently locked into a four per cent (annual increase) collective bargaining agreement with nurses.</B></B></p> <P><B><B>"<B>If we do not receive this funding, it would spell serious issues for aged care providers.</B>"</B></B></P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/3F5DA715-90AC-4308-93ED-69170AA7543B/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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