FROM the time he was working as a second year carpentry apprentice, Vern Page was putting something away for his retirement.
He worked hard for many years with QBuild and when it came time to pack away his lunchbox and to start enjoying his later years Vern was in a comfortable financial position.
He was ready to look at travelling and to enjoy his life with long-time partner Cheryl on Tamborine Mountain where they had built a home in 1999.
Like all retirees that have strong assets and savings behind them, Vern, 74 and Cheryl, 70, weren’t eligible to receive a pension, but that didn’t worry them at all as they could survive on their Super fund earnings.
Unfortunately that has now changed and it’s all because Cheryl was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Dementia last November.
“I was told her condition would worsen quickly and even though I didn’t want to believe it, the doctor was right,” Vern said.
“She now doesn’t know her name and has become prone to falls and wanderings and recently broke her leg in an accident.”
“When she gets out of hospital I have no choice but to be her full-time carer, and I am fine with that, but if she falls again I’m concerned I won’t be able to get her back up.”
Vern is aware that Cheryl will eventually have to go into a nursing home and his investigations towards that have left him shocked.
Advice he received revealed as a non pensioner he will have to pay as much as $500,000 for a unit and on top of that it will cost him $70,000 plus a year for Cheryl’s care and living expenses.
“My reality now is to get Cheryl into a home, if I can find one, will destroy my ability to be self-funded,” Vern said.
“It’s now apparent that if I hadn’t worked hard to create a retirement fund and I was eligible for the pension I would be much better off.”
“No reward for the hard workers and instead all the benefits go to those who didn’t care about their retirement, spent their money and just got ready to live on a pension.”
Vern said he is still getting over the shock of the situation which was initially explained to him by a good mate who’d just placed his wife in a retirement home because of Dementia.
That friend, who didn’t wish to be named, said he paid $400,000 for the unit on the day his wife moved in and now every week he picks up a bill of almost $1,400 for her expenses.
“He also worked hard for his retirement, built up a nest egg, didn’t qualify for the pension and now is seeing everything he worked for disappear,” Vern said.
“It just seems the whole system is broken and hundreds more people will soon be in the same position as myself.”
