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By Mara Pattison-Sowden
UNCERTAINTY surrounds the future of residents and staff at Warburton’s aged care home after management announced the facility would be closed because it is no longer commercially viable.
Natural deaths have been outstripping the number of residents coming into Warburton’s AdventCare facility, which hasn’t had a waiting list for many years.
On Monday the management said the care home will “wind down” over two years but the nurses union said it may be closed by the end of the financial year in June.
The union is concerned there will not be enough rooms for residents or jobs for staff at the Yarra Junction AdventCare.
The Warburton AdventCare facility currently has 34 residents but can cater for 51.
AdventCare executive director Ruth Welling said there were no immediate plans to close the facility and said residents were not being asked to move out.
“Even though occupancy levels are declining we are committed to care for our residents as best as we can,” she said in a statement to the Mail.
“AdventCare has always made this commitment to our residents more than 10 years ago that we are not moving out of the valley.”
Speaking to the Mail she said AdventCare would try to handle the situation sensitively.
Ms Welling said the 35-year-old facility did not meet building requirements and could not be improved.
“The rooms are so small they don’t fit hoists and there’s not even a separate dining room to the lounge room,” she said.
Ms Welling said the 100-bed Yarra Junction facility had been bought two years ago in order to cater for the entire Yarra Valley, with an extra 50 beds to be built by 2013.
She said staff, residents and their families were being kept informed and no resident would be forced out.
“But there will come a time where we must absolutely close when the numbers are no longer viable to operate the facility,” she said.
State secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation Victorian branch Lisa Fitzpatrick said she was concerned about the “winding down” period and said staff and residents needed to be clear about their futures.
“They need to be clear about where there aren’t opportunities – they can’t play around with members’ livelihoods,” she said.
Ms Fitzpatrick said she wanted to see detailed contingency plans to ensure residents, families and staff felt emotionally and financially secure while they were still at Warburton.