Noticeboard: HammondCare goes vertical with latest dementia home

In this story:

• HammondCare goes vertical with latest dementia home
• Catholic Healthcare opens mental health transition unit
• Churches of Christ Queensland projects underway

HammondCare goes vertical with latest dementia home

NSW provider HammondCare recently opened its $21 million, multistorey aged care facility specifically designed for people living with dementia and based on a domestic-scale approach.

HammondCare Wahroonga, located on Sydney’s north shore, incorporates a cottage-style design model over five storeys and provides 57 beds for people living with dementia.

“People living with dementia are happiest in an environment that is smaller in size, home-like, has access to outdoors, lots of natural light and is easy to navigate,” said Angela Raguz, HammondCare’s general manager of residential care.

“This design, believed to be the first of its kind in Australia, translates our internationally renowned cottage-style homes, normally part of a spread-out village, into a multi-level building. This means people can remain living near family and where they are familiar.”

The home features five apartments with a different level of care provided on each floor, as well as a chapel, resident’s shop, hairdresser and other amenities.

It was completed late last year and the first residents moved in last month.

Catholic Healthcare opens mental health transition unit

Catholic Healthcare, in partnership with Hunter New England Local Health District and supported by NSW Ministry of Health, recently opened the first Mental Health Aged Care Partnership Initiative transition unit in the region.

The aged care provider has welcomed 10 older people into the new purpose-built transition unit within Charles O’Neill Hostel at Mayfield West in Newcastle.

The transition unit aims to support older people living with severe behavioural and psychiatric symptoms or complex needs associated with mental illness to transition from acute mental health services into residential aged care.

Catholic Healthcare said the focus is older people who have experienced long stays in mental health units in the priority sites identified under NSW Health’s Pathways to Community Living Initiative.

The expected length of stay for a resident in a transition unit is roughly 250 days, during which time the focus will be on enabling them to transition to residential aged care, the provider said.

In addition to the refurbishment of Charles O’Neill Hostel, Catholic Healthcare plans to expand the service to accommodate an additional 40 residents, offering further capacity to care for disadvantaged older people living with mental illness in the Hunter New England region.

Churches of Christ Queensland projects underway

Construction on Churches of Christ in Queensland’s $10.5 million affordable housing development in Kallangur and the greater Moreton Bay region recently got underway.

Community housing provider Churches of Christ Housing Services is developing 50 townhouses on land donated by local philanthropists Ian and Neva Handy.

The Duffield Road development will provide 50 affordable and energy efficient townhouses with a mix of one, two and three bedrooms.

The houses will be targeted at key workers including those in community services, as well as seniors, people living with a disability and those on low to moderate incomes.

Churches of Christ in Queensland also recently turned the sod on its major Warwick seniors living development.

The $33 million residential aged care service adjoins the recently acquired 98-unit Regency Park Retirement Village and adds 128 residential aged care places for the Southern Downs community.

Also in the area, work is underway on the $14.5 million extension of the Villa Carramar Aged Care Service in Stanthorpe.

Have we missed an expansion or opening? Send us the details and an image to editorial@australianageingagenda.com.au