Spring 2021 – Message from our CEO
The Ongoing Pandemic
I hope you are all continuing to maintain your physical and mental heath during this extended period of uncertainty and worry.
Our thoughts are with our NSW neighbours and all those with loved ones in parts of the world only just beginning to roll out the vaccines – that affects many of our staff and is a grave concern. Although over 40% of the global population has now received at least one vaccine dose and around 30 million doses are being administered daily, just 1.9% of people in low-income countries have received their first dose.
Here, vaccination becomes mandatory for aged care staff from 17 September: we are on target to have a fully vaccinated work force with just a handful of people declining and a few exemptions on medical grounds. We do not anticipate any impact to our staffing rosters but will be very sorry to lose those staff who are declining to have the vaccination without a
medical exemption.
It is disappointing that media coverage has been so negative around COVID-19 vaccination: the aged care sector as a whole has worked extremely hard to achieve vaccination of their staff in difficult circumstances.
Living in Lockdown
Life has become somewhat monotonous for us all as some of the most locked-down people in the world!
But I want to assure you that our staff are showing great initiative to bring fun and enjoyment into the lives of our residents in aged care (see page 4), and our Veteran Services Team are continuing to check in on our Ex-Service Accommodation tenants. If you have a loved one in the Vasey RSL Care community and are concerned about them, please do let us know.
Ivanhoe’s Doors Close for Now
With all our Ivanhoe residents moved to their new homes by early July, the doors closed: it is the end of an era and a sad time for those who called this home.
We are grateful to the residents and their families for their understanding of the need for this upheaval. I hear that they are settling in well and getting to make new friends and take part in the regular activities.
We have also retained some of our Ivanhoe staff who have moved to our other sites: however, we were unable to offer suitable roles to all and some took the redundancy packages available: making decisions for the organisation that affect the lives of our residents and staff is one of the most difficult aspects of this role and I wish the very best to those staff who have moved to new roles – I know their new employers are lucky to have them.
I sincerely appreciate the support everyone has shown for the longer-term goals of our organisation.
Continuing the Mission
Our Board has been developing the Strategic Plan for the next four years and are now finalising it with the aim to have it published by the end of October.
As we define our action plans for the new ‘V’ Centre, we are undertaking a comprehensive research project to engage those with first-hand knowledge and experience – veterans and war widows. The research project is well under way with the full results expected before the end of the calendar year (more info below).
As you may have read on the front page, planning is also turning into action for another part of our strategy, with the purchase of three units at Wodonga: this is our first step in providing accommodation to the veteran community in areas with higher veteran populations outside of Metropolitan Melbourne. Our expertise in accommodation will integrate with other veteran-specific services to help veterans in need right across our state.