5. Our first efforts were to build residential aged care
facilities and in 1993 we opened our first one,
McLean Lodge, in Flemington
6. Then followed a succession of aged care facilities
including a nursing home specifically for elderly
homeless people.
7. Realising that some
elderly people did not
need full residential
aged care services, we
began to build older
persons housing
8. And then realised that we
needed community care
support packages to
help maintain older
people in their housing.
Today we manage
about 550
CACP and EACH
packages.
9. In summary we very
quickly realised that
the aged care notion
of independent living
was a nonsense – we
all need various
forms of support
10. Providing homeless services from within a mainstream
service system that is not designed for homeless
people, is a constant challenge.
11. The key lesson we learnt
was that it was
necessary to redefine or
reframe the problem
Homeless and Elderly not
Elderly and Homeless
12. A typical client of the aged
care sector is
• 85 years old
• Middle class
• Expectant of services
• With an aggressive
daughter to lobby on her
behalf
13. A typical client of the aged A typical Wintringham client
care sector is however is:
• 85 years old • 65 years old
• Middle class • Working class
• Expectant of services • Reluctant to accept services
• With an aggressive • Little or no family support
daughter to lobby on her
behalf
Wintringham’s history is now reasonably well known – we evolved from the night shelters where elderly people were trying to survive in about as tough an environment as is possible to imagine. Predictably they were dying like flies.
The aged care industry is very different to the homeless service sector. It is more conservative, less innovative and with a very different client basePrimarily, it has taught us to think for ourselves and create our own solutions
The key lesson was that in order to survive in what was potentially a hostile environment, we needed to reframe the way people looked at the elderly homeless. If we could get them seen as being part of the aged cohort, we then could open up the gates to aged care funding.As a result we have been able to establish the right of elderly homeless people to access aged care servicesWe see ourselves as being a housing provider into which we provide aged care services
We soon learnt that there was no simple or universal answer to either what an elderly person needed or who should fund itflexibility
One day while discussing with a new manager a resident who despite having sufficient awareness that his drinking was killing him chose to continue, the conversation changed to what role do we or should we play in prolonging life. Where and how does our duty of care impact on the resident’s rights? At what stage do we curtail rights to protect the client or his neighbours? These are difficult questions that we wrestle with every day. For many of our chronically addicted or brain damaged clients, not only is alcohol and cigarettes a behaviour management tool, it is also one of their daily pleasures. In the absence of family or friends, how do we justify intervening to prevent that addictive behaviour, even if it is a public health issue?In helping explain Wintringham’s position, we developed the Telstra Dome theory of aged care.