Thursday, 7 March 2024

Ministers statements: aged care

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:45): I rise to speak about our public sector residential aged care facilities and the highly skilled staff that run them. Last month I had the pleasure to join members Michaela Settle and Juliana Addison in visiting some of our fantastic facilities in the west of the state: Grant Lodge, operated by Western Health in Bacchus Marsh, and Steele Haughton and Talbot Place, operated by Grampians Health. It was a pleasure to meet with staff and residents and to hear about the day-to-day operation of these services. Our facilities would not be the high-quality services that they are without our amazing skilled care teams that run them: the nurses, the care workers and the administrative staff. I thank them for their work.

I would like to take a moment to make a special acknowledgement of the teams at two health services: Beaufort and Skipton Health Service and Maryborough District Health Service. During the fire events in the west last month, residents from Beaufort nursing home and hostel and Avoca nursing home were safely evacuated in accordance with their emergency management planning. Evacuating an aged care home is no small feat, and I want to thank everyone who contributed to making this an efficient and safe evacuation: the nurses, care workers, health service staff and of course our emergency services, including Ambulance Victoria. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the Department of Health officials, who have worked closely with the public sector residential aged care providers to support that continued care. I am pleased to report that the residents are now safely back at home, at both the Beaufort and Avoca services.