Coolibah part of new trend
The Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot has officially opened a new day centre in Western Australia as part of a $34.6 million trial program to run day respite services within aged care homes.
The Coolibah Day Centre is a day respite service within the Mandurah Retirement Village.
With close to $1.2 million in Commonwealth funding, it will provide high, low and emergency respite care seven days per week, for up to 84 carers.
Local MP Gary Gray said he was pleased by the wide range of service on offer at Coolibah.
“[It] provides access to professional staff including visiting GPs, pharmacy reviews, clinical and psychiatric nurses – and also activities such as outings and entertainment for care recipients,” he said.
“As Coolibah Day Respite operates seven days per week, carers have flexibility in meeting their individual respite needs,” Mr Gray said.
The new centre is one of 30 pilot sites selected at the end of last year to operate respite services in nursing homes over the next four years.
The scheme is part of the National Respite for Carers Program which supports over 130,000 carers every year.
Mrs Elliot said that unlike residential respite, the person receiving care does not need an Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) referral to participate in the program.
“Establishing new innovative respite centres within residential aged care homes makes a lot of sense because they take advantage of the existing infrastructure, services and skills,” she said.
For further information about the new Commonwealth respite program, see the July August issue of Australian Ageing Agenda magazine.
SOURCE: AustralianAgingAgenda
----------------------------------------------------
More Recent Posts from Spotlight on Elder Abuse
No comments:
Post a Comment