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The closure of the Bulahdelah’s Cedar Wharf Lodge will see elderly couples torn apart, unable to visit each other as limited transport options hinder travel to the New South Wales Hunter region aged care home.
Since Anglican Care announced the closure of the town’s only aged care facility this week, some in the community will be left travelling over 75km to the nearest aged care facility in Taree to visit their partner.
Anne-Marie Barry, a Bulahdelah local, is friends with one elderly woman facing separation from her husband.
“Once she says goodbye to him, it’s goodbye. She can’t get to see him; there are no buses, no taxis, Ubers here. She’s basically lost her husband while he is alive.”
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Cedar Wharf Lodge is one of two facilities which Anglican Care has this week announced will be closing in the Hunter region. It is the latest in a slew of closures of aged care homes in regional NSW including Southern Cross Care NSW and ACT’s facilities at Bombala and Swansea last month.
Dr Peter Stuart, the Anglican bishop of Newcastle and the president of Anglican Care, said the facilities in Mt Hutton and Bulahdelah would be forced to close due to the age of the buildings preventing necessary upgrades and upkeep.
“As we looked at present and future service provision, we recognised that the age and design of these buildings prohibited the necessary upgrade and upkeep required to support the provision of best practice, modern residential aged care facilities and services,” Stuart said.
Paul Sadler, the CEO of Aged and Community Services Australia, said the data showed that between 60% and 75% of aged care homes in regional areas had been operating substantially in deficit.
Sadler said this reflected the underfunding of the aged care system as a whole, uncovered by the royal commission into aged care. He said regional aged care facilities had been particularly affected.
“Our subsidies don’t keep track of our costs. So we can’t afford the wage increases that our staff deserve. We can’t afford the other cost increases that impact the sector,” Sadler said.
Last year the government responded to the royal commission into aged care, announcing that providers would receive an immediate increase of $10 per resident a day from July 2021 before a new $17.7bn funding model would come into effect over five years from 2022.
However, aged care workers, economists and Labor have slammed the government’s response, accusing the Coalition of not addressing low wages and overstretched carers.
Belinda Moore, the treasurer of the Bulahdelah Country Women’s Association, said the news had come as “a real kick in the guts”, especially since “the community built that place”.
Bulahdelah’s Cedar Wharf Lodge began operating in 1991 as a community-owned facility but was taken over by Anglican Care in 2017.
Barry said it was a “terrible” decision for the community to have to make. “Nobody wanted it to go, but the government put so much red tape that the board running the home at the time couldn’t keep up.”
Her parents were part of the grassroots fundraising efforts to open the original nursing home.
Her father, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 15 years ago, has been managing under the care of her mother, but would not have been far off having to move into the home.
“It’s always been comforting to know Dad would still be in the area.”
Karen Hutchinson, who served on Stroud district council for 17 years, said they nearly lost their local aged care facility six years ago, but staff initiatives to introduce home care packages were able to save it then.
Barry said she had known people who tried to get family into permanent care, but the facility had not been taking bookings for permanent residents since before Christmas.
“There is nothing wrong with the building. It’s 30 years old, it’s not like it’s built of asbestos falling down around their ears.”
Stuart said “it has been an emotional few days for our residents, staff and families. This is their home and the closure represents a big change for them all.”
Barry was worried not only about the physical health implications of moving very frail people, some in palliative care, but also the mental health implications of the tightknit community of residents being split up.
Moore was also concerned about what the closure would mean for employment in the town.
She said she was especially concerned for women as there were “not many places for women to get jobs in town”.
Moore said when the local paramedic moved to Bulahdelah, his wife was able to get a job in the nursing home and this closure would limit people’s ability to move to the small community.