By Jesse Graham
RESIDENTS rallying against the impending closure of Warburton’s AdventCare have pleaded for more time in a meeting with the company’s head on Tuesday 23 August.
A group of 22 Save Warburton Aged-Care Group (SWAG) members, Seventh-Day Adventist Church members, AdventCare workers and relatives of residents visited the organisation’s Nunawading office on Tuesday to meet with CEO David Reece and board chairman Pastor Graeme Christian.
Presenting a petition of 1800 signatures, gathered through community and online petitions, the group spoke to Mr Reece and Mr Christian for more than an hour about the closure, announced on 3 August.
Though little was formally resolved in the meeting, the group, which said it represented many others in the community, voiced their frustration with the decision and questioned the justification for it.
Mr Christian said that keeping AdventCare open for the next five-to-10 years would cost $2.5 million in refurbishments, as well as running at a financial loss.
He said if an organisation or individual was able to underwrite those costs, the centre could continue – but that no-one had made any approaches since the closure announcement.
“If that is a possibility we would love to be able to make that happen but we haven’t had anybody who has said we’re putting the cash on the table,” Mr Christian said.
“Give us a proposal – put something on the table.
“If the local church wants to find somebody that they can work with to take the home over and operate it, we need to know about that. But we haven’t heard anything yet.”
Mr Christian and Mr Reece also cited Federal Government funding cuts as one of the factors for the closure.
One of the attendees suggested that community members could volunteer their skills to help refurbish and continue running the centre, while another said AdventCare should delay the closure, due for October, by two more months.
Warburton Seventh-Day Adventist Church member Dot Carvill said the local church had not been consulted before the announcement was made.
“We were as much in the dark as the facility was; we believe that we weren’t treated fairly at the time,” she said.
“I’m not saying this to create division or a hassle, I’m saying it because we want to work with you.
“We want to be considered, we want to be consulted, not all of a sudden just chopped off at the socks, so-to-speak.”
SWAG chairperson Peta Godenzi urged the group to be positive, but warned the representatives that the problem would not go away.
“As a community member, we just heard the Seventh-Day Adventists Church is willing to work with AdventCare – the community will work with the church,” she said.
“Whatever you need from us, because the community is very, very upset – clearly upset – and they’re going to put their hands up and they’re going to come forward and help any way they can.”
The Save Warburton Aged-Care Group Facebook page currently has about 830 members.
Yarra Ranges councillor Jim Child said he wanted to be sure that “every single opportunity” to keep the home open had been explored by the church and AdventCare.
“Bear in mind, there’s a lot of community out there, in a catchment of 1600 square kilometres, and at the moment the focus is on the Seventh-Day Adventists and that facility,” he said.
A member of the group criticised the Seventh-Day Adventists for the closure of the Sanitarium factory and the town’s hospital, but Mr Christian said interstate and international counterparts of the church were involved in both ventures, not the Victorian-based organisation.
Mr Christian said he would present the petition to the AdventCare board when they meet on Thursday 25 August.
