Foster’s aged care bonanza
Happy future: from left, PCAC committee president Sandy Bucello, Banksia Lodge resident Amy Schulz, diversional therapist Anne Rendell and PCAC CEO Claire Schmierer.
FOSTER will be the site of a $12 million aged care facility, after the Federal Government backed a plan by Prom Country Aged Care to spend up big in the town.
The building will become part of an impressive health precinct, with the South Gippsland Hospital and Foster Medical Centre also connected to the hub.
“We’ve received a federal grant of $9 million to build a 60 bed facility. We were over the moon,” Prom Country Aged Care president Sandy Bucello said.
“We have a project manager engaged. He’ll be working with us to make sure the project is fulfilled.”
PCAC has signed conditional contracts with the South Gippsland Hospital to build on the land behind it. But the group will have to raise $2.707 million to complete the facility.
Major fundraising will begin in July.
“We believe it’s possible to raise the money in our community. We’re doing it differently to the way it’s been done before. The plan is that we’ll be going into our community and outside our community,” Ms Bucello said.
The facility will be set up for 30 low care and 30 high care residents, but could be expanded upon.
“The design will be flexible, if the needs of the community change. If there’s a greater need for dementia services in the future, the rooms can be utilised in different ways,” Ms Bucello said.
“The aim is to have a builder building something quite innovative. We really want to have a facility that invites the community in at every point. There’ll be lots of community spaces, which is really exciting.
Ms Bucello said the design was something that was still being nutted out and the ability to expand is of paramount importance.
“The demographic says there will be a greater need for aged care in the future. Although the government is putting a lot of resources into keeping people in their own homes, how that plays out in the future is yet to be seen,” she said.
There are hopes the building works could begin as early as December this year.
The centre should be operational and ready to move in to by May 2013.
There are 30 low care residents in PCAC’s Banksia Lodge at Foster. There are 30 high care residents at the company’s other facility – Prom View Lodge in Toora.
Closure of Prom View Lodge has caused consternation in Toora, with townspeople saying it will be another thing to add to the list of things lost.
“The committee of management will be working on what happens with Prom View Lodge. There’s a lot of misinformation out there in the community. A lot of it’s negative,” Ms Bucello said.
“We believe we can have an outcome that’s better for the building and better for Toora than what we’ve got at the moment.”
She said PCAC was “exploring a heap of different options”.
PCAC has not ruled out the possibility of the building continuing to operate as an aged care facility.
“If we can find a use that makes it financially viable as a stand-alone facility, that feeds into what we’ve got, we’ll look at it. We know the Toora community is very anxious about the future of that building. We really appreciate where they’re coming from and we really want to involve them in the consultation,” she said.
Banksia Lodge will continue to operate, but its use will change.
New PCAC CEO Claire Schmierer said the new facility would be geared toward having all services at the one site.
“This area has one of the highest over 65 populations in rural Victoria,” she said.
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