General News
7 November, 2022
Town's aged care push
A NEW business case has recommended pension and rental assistance increases be advocated to make a proposed Wedderburn aged care facility viable. Wedderburn Lions Club commissioned Bendigo-based consultancy Sorted to prepare the plan in a bid to have...
A NEW business case has recommended pension and rental assistance increases be advocated to make a proposed Wedderburn aged care facility viable.
Wedderburn Lions Club commissioned Bendigo-based consultancy Sorted to prepare the plan in a bid to have a 30-bed supported residential aged care accommodation in the town.
The club has received pledges totalling more than $450,000 over the past decade for the project. However, the Sorted report found a weekly shortfall of $62.10 a week for each resident.
Financial modelling in the report is based on 75 per cent occupancy.
Sorted’s Claire Fountain has recommended advocacy to government for a special supported residential service allowance to bridge the shortfall.
She also said there should be advocacy to government for care residents to retain and transfer their home care package from a residential to a care setting.
Lions’ Jude Raftis said the club’s aged care sub-committee had started advocacy and met on Monday with Labor candidate for Ripon Martha Haylett. Ms Haylett said she would advocate for a supported residential service in the town.
Mrs Raftis said the community had been working towards a local aged care facility for more than a decade.
She said the new business case showed how a local model could be viable but that would require changes in government policies and frameworks.
A Wedderburn facility would improve the town’s liveability for all ages, Mrs Raftis said.
In her report, Ms Fountain said: “Research conducted by the Lions group established that Wedderburn compared to other Victorian regional towns is currently as a disadvantage - at 941 residents it has the third largest population with zero beds. In comparison, the fourth largest town with a population of 893 has access to 19 beds.
“The concept of establishing a community-funded facility is inspiring and has the potential to provide a high quality, collaborative, community-led solution to the provision of safe local elder care and for the model to address social and economic challenges being faced in small regional towns across Australia,” she wrote.
“Modelling shows that a 30-bed SRS with residents paying rent based on 85 per cent of the current government pension rate plus the current rental assistance funding is not enough on its own to cover the operational costs ... a $62.10 weekly shortfall per unit.”
Ms Fountain said potential ways to build financial viability into the model included a “unique pilot project focused on building a replicable community-driven and operated care for people no longer able, or wishing, to live in their own homes but wanting to remain connected to their friends and families”.
She said the model would free up housing stock, address loneliness and isolation, build employment in rural towns and improve their economies.
Ms Fountain said the model could explore potential for community-based social enterprises that work to add value to supported residential services and other partnerships.
The model would employ “well-researched benefits of intergenerational connections between the aged and youth in communities, re-ignite a level of awareness that communities are responsible for caring for all residents from cradle to grave and provide short-term respite for carers allowing for a holiday, short break or to recover from illness”.
Land in Wilson Street has been set aside for construction of an aged care facility if the Lions project was given the green light.
Ms Fountain said her report’s recommendations were “a place to start the discussions and a move towards the vision becoming a reality”.