Monday 11 May 2015

The Repatriation General Hospital

is  under threat. I have written about this elsewhere and I will not repeat myself concerning the failure of the present state government to ignore the wishes of an overwhelming majority of  the people it is supposed to serve.
Yesterday however I had cause to visit the new building there. It was finished last August. Yes, they put a new building up even while they were deciding that the entire place should be closed.  (It reminds me of the week in which they repaved a street I was living in. They finished the job on a Tuesday and then dug the road up again on the Thursday to put in a new gas line.) 
Middle Cat is currently in the new building. It is a designated "rehabilitation" facility. The maximum stay is a fortnight and Middle Cat is hoping she will be fit enough to prowl home at the end of her stay. 
The facilities are lovely. It is, as they say, "light and airy". The colours are light. Each room has an ensuite. There is a social area, there is a gym and all the other things one might expect in a new rehabilitation facility. The place is full and there is always a waiting list - hence the fortnight stay restriction. 
And yes, they want to close that too. One of the staff told me that  the government considers it might make good aged care accommodation. Oh. Right.
We need aged care accommodation. We desperately need aged care accommodation. The population in this state has an ever increasing number of older people who will need accommodation outside their own homes. 
But we also need rehabilitation facilities. It makes sense to have them. It may stop some people needing aged care accommodation or it may mean they need it later rather than sooner. 
Somewhere there must be a very strange committee, the Committee of Foolish Decisions. It is the only obvious explanation for even considering that a gym full of intensive exercise machines could be used by the frail elderly.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is a very strange committee but it is a rather large committee judging by the amount of bad decisions they make!