Regional SA aged care gets boost

An expansion of an aged care facility in regional South Australia will allow an extra 40 elderly people to be accommodated in Millicent.

The federal government has given the Boneham Cottage Homes Aged Care Facility  the licence to build a 20 high-care bed and 20 low-care bed facility,  with a no interest loan of $6 million.

The facility’s general manager, Jenny Norman, tells DPS News there is “the need to be proactive and look at the future to see where aged care is going”.

The new facility will reportedly cater for those living with dementia.

“The biggest problem were facing at the moment is these residents are coming in to aged care with some form of dementia,” she says, describing it as a “fast growing medical condition”.

The expansion will also allow residents to age in their own communities, avoiding the need for these residents to move away to other towns to access aged care services.

“Having residents move is not easy on the residents’ families. Better regional aged care is something this industry needs badly because not everybody can just travel to Adelaide when they need to,” Ms Norman says.

“So we needed to look at how we could fulfil some of that obligation and to keep the local people in their own town close to their loved ones and easily accessible,” she adds.

Construction is not expected to begin until later this year.

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