The introduction of new aged care regulations and cost escalations may see the Lilliane Brady Village (LBV) aged care facility closed.
Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton met with Cobar Shire Council mayor Jarrod Marsden and general manager Peter Vlatko while he was in Cobar last week to discuss the future of the Council-owned facility.
“We spoke about their concerns for the future of the Lilliane Brady Village nursing home, which is at risk of closure as a result of increased and unrealistic aged care regulations and cost escalations,” Mr Coulton said.
Cr Marsden said prior to COVID-19, the LBV had “hovered around a breakeven point financially”.
He said while it had lost a bit in some years, in other years it would make a small profit.
“Before COVID we had 49 boxes we needed to tick in order for the LBV to meet all government standards for aged care and be fully compliant,” Cr Marsden explained.
“Through and since COVID, there have been 88 new standards and requirements put in place, all of which cost money to adhere to.”
He said some of these services are not provided locally and need to be sourced from outside of Cobar, services such as physiotherapy, tele-health and contract nursing staff, which involve additional costs for extra time, travel, accommodation, meals etc and which Cr Marsden estimates at a cost of $1.4M.
“These are required services and we certainly will not be considering not providing them, as the health and wellbeing of the residents is our highest priority,” he said.
“As such we are faced with a 1.4 million dollar per year shortfall.
“Cobar Shire Council gets around $5 million in rates and every other cent we get that makes up a $55 million dollar budget is in grant funding.
“Removing $1.4 million dollars a year from a very small pool of money to sustain the LBV is a situation which council must make some very tough decisions around.
“Before we consider options like massive cuts to other areas of the council business, or (it hurts me to say this) closing the LBV, we are going to try and secure ongoing funding from the government to enable us to keep providing this service to the residents of Cobar Shire.
“The alternatives, such as people having to go to Dubbo or Griffith for aged care, are unthinkable and unacceptable to me.”
Council has previously taken expressions of interest from private organisations to operate the facility, however the feedback was that the size of the facility, 44 beds, was 16 beds short of making it a profitable business model.
Cr Marsden said council’s original deal with the government when the new health service was built that they would take over the LBV, was reneged upon.
“Personally I do not want to close the LBV, and while I can’t speak for the other councillors, I am pretty certain that most (if not all) councillors feel the same way.
“But I must be up front and honest with residents when I say that without help there will come a time in the very near future where tough decisions will be made which may include the closure of the LBV or the removal/reduction of other services in order for us to keep the LBV open,” he said.
“With the assistance of Mark Coulton, Cobar Shire Council is taking the first steps in approaching the Federal Government to ask for special ongoing funding to allow us to keep the doors open without impacting on other areas of what council does.”
Mr Coulton said he has been working closely with the Minister for Aged Care Anika Wells MP to try to find a solution to allow the aged care facility to remain open.
