Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Wednesday, 5 August 2009, I was privileged to be invited to open the most recent stage of the Yallambee Village aged care facility in Revesby. The original Yallambee Village was built in September 1981. Exactly 10 years to the day before the recent opening, on 5 August 1999, I opened an eight-bed residential wing. This wing was named after the late Ray McCormack, a former Mayor of Bankstown.

Yallambee is now run by Bankstown City Aged Care Limited, a not-for-profit organisation and charity which has operated since 1972. The original units at Yallambee were built by Bankstown City Council in conjunction with our local hospital, three Lions Clubs, a Rotary Club and eight of the local licensed clubs, including five RSLs and Revesby Workers Club, of which I am vice-president. It is this model which makes Yallambee a superb example of facilities being developed by a community in response to their needs. In addition to providing residential units and services at Yallambee, Bankstown City Aged Care looks after another 550 clients at home, in day care and at three other residential care sites.

One of the changes in the model of care provided by the new units at Yallambee is the physical style. Over the past 20 years the average age of residents has increased as more people stay in their homes, with assistance, for as long as possible. At the time the original ‘motel style’ units were appropriate, and gave residents with low-care needs a sense of moving to a small individual unit. Today, residents are more likely to need access to nursing care over a 24 hour period and there can be safety issues as staff move between buildings.

The new model is more ‘hotel-like’ in that it goes up, allowing easy access by staff to residents over 24 hours and allowing security matters to be managed more easily by limiting access points to the building. The objective of Bankstown City Aged Care in establishing stage one of the long-term plans was to ensure that the aged care needs of baby boomers would be provided for within the community. Residents are able to enter the facility from their own homes when they are low care and do not have to move again as their level of care needs increase. The 32 new units are all single with electric beds, ensuites with disabled facilities, an LCD TV, small table and a dining chair together with a recliner or sitting chair and the usual locker, cupboards et cetera and individual air conditioning. There are two activity rooms, one active and one passive, to allow residents and their guests access to a wide range of activity. The long-term plan provides for similar rooms for the remainder of the units.

My congratulations go to Yallambee, Bankstown City Aged Care, its board and its CEO, Terry Madden, for the vision they have shown in the development of residential care. The model Terry and Bankstown City Aged Care have used is one of which our community can be very proud. I have a very high personal regard for the people associated with this project, and the staff, led by Christine Jones, who has been the manager at Yallambee Village for a number of years, also provide excellent service to the residents. Most of them are locals, so they live locally. They know a lot of the residents, who they have met over the years, and they give the kind of care that really turns Yallambee Village into a home for these elderly residents. That is why they like going there. I have a friend whose father was umming and ahing about whether he would go there. We went to the open day a couple of weeks ago. He was looking at the facility and, within minutes, he signed up to say, ‘That’s where I want to be’. It will take a couple of months for him to go in there, but I have been to a number of facilities around my electorate and in other electorates and Yallambee is at the top of the scale. But that does not diminish the way the staff deal with the residents. It was a great opening. There were hundreds of people there. There was warmth, and you could walk away knowing that Yallambee was going to look after these aged citizens in our community quite well.