Residents come first

By Mara Pattison-Sowden
THE Warburton congregation of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church has stood up in opposition to AdventCare’s proposal to “wind down operations” at the Warburton facility.
But AdventCare says that their residents come first and as long as there are admissions into the facility to make it operational, and there were two more last week, the site would continue to remain open.
Warburton’s senior minister Pastor Richard Araya-Bishop wrote to the head of the SDA church in Victoria to ask for an assurance the Warburton facility would remain open.
The Warburton SDA church wants to create a new vision for aged care and retirement living at AdventCare Yarra Ranges and take an active role in helping the facility to thrive.
They don’t believe everything has been done save the Warburton facility and said they believed people had been purposely moved to Yarra Junction to ensure that facility remained full.
Pastor Araya-Bishop said the local church was not invited to contribute its knowledge of the local market.
“Historically the AdventCare Yarra Ranges facility belongs to the local Warburton Church, and we want to ensure it continues providing services it was intended to,” he said.
“We suggest the possibility of appointing a dynamic local manager who would provide full-time support and a clear vision to implement strategies to improve demand for beds.”
AdventCare executive director Ruth Welling said the business arm of the nursing homes within the SDA church was required to follow the Aged Care Act 1997.
“For whatever reasons and however the church structure is historically, my responsibilities are under the Aged Care Act and we met with the residents, we told them it’s declining but don’t fear because we are not shutting you down,” she said.
Ms Welling said when she took over management in 2001 there were regular meetings between herself and the local church, who both knew the rooms were inadequate and the population growth was non-existent.
“We came to the same resolution together to ask ‘what can we do?’ ” she said.
The current consultation is meant to be ongoing, Ms Welling said, until the numbers rose or declined.
“I’ve said to the staff if tomorrow you can bring me 53 residents we will be back in full business, but years down the track if this situation doesn’t improve something has to happen,” she said.
Ms Welling said she believed the extensive choices with nursing homes now open in Mount Evelyn, Lilydale and Croydon meant a smaller population was left for the Warburton facility, and she said claims that AdventCare weren’t advertising were false.
“We advertise on the internet, in a special aged care guide, visit social workers in the area, and advertise in the newspaper quite regularly,” she said.
“It is very crazy to say to a business ‘you deliberately didn’t want to put people in the facility, you deliberately don’t want to advertise’ – what business wouldn’t want to fill a bed?”
Ms Welling said contingency plans had been put in place for the declining residency, the Elder Rights Advocacy group will provide independent information to residents, and talks with the Australian Nurses Federation have ensured staff rights and entitlements would be protected.
She said although a letter was sent to the Warburton SDA church, she has had no response and was not invited to or aware of last week’s community meeting.