Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In late September I was given the honour of representing the Minister for Aged Care at the official opening of Healthia residential aged-care homes, which is run by the ACH Group and located in Elizabeth South, in my electorate of Spence. Healthia has been a project several years in the making and incorporates a number of initiatives that are yet to be seen elsewhere in Australia. It is an aged-care facility with room for 96 residents across eight small-scale homes, and, far from being a conventional aged-care facility, it is more accurately described as an aged-care health and education hub.

At the formal opening of Healthia, we heard from Chris Picton, South Australia's Minister for Health and Wellbeing, and Professor Joanne Cys, who spoke of the unique partnerships that the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network and the University of South Australia have forged with ACH Group within this facility and across the hub respectively. I have to say that the partnership with the University of South Australia is a particularly exciting one. It's a partnership that will improve the quality of health services to residents and to the northern suburbs of Adelaide and improve the quality of an education many of the students from UniSA receive with their placement here in a number of diverse health and allied health fields. I'm glad that an industry that was in need of a game-changer has one in Healthia aged-care health and education hub, right in the middle of Spence.

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