Avoiding a collision between aged care and nature

A recent ABC Four Corners exposé of the aged care crisis in Australia has sparked a Royal Commission into the quality and safety of aged care, raising some serious questions about the mental health and well-being of elderly people in our communities.

There have been an incredible 20 reviews into aged care over the past 20 years in Australia and this poses the question, when will we learn from our mistakes and treat elderly people as we would like to be treated ourselves in the last season of life?

The media hype about the Royal Commission coincided with local news of aged care developments which are destroying a large number of native ecosystems as the care needs of an ageing human population collide with nature.

Local cases of the aged care – nature collision

The Tewantin Carramar extension originally threatened the Swamp Crayfish, although I understand that subsequent decisions have remedied this. But the Cooroy Palm Lake Resort was another of those devastating green field developments where the site was clear felled.

The Sundale development on McKinnon Drive at Tewantin resulted in the loss of seven hectares of prime koala habitat (not to mention countless other species of fauna and flora).  Sundale had gone to the Planning and Environment Court to challenge an earlier (2013) refusal by the previous Sunshine Coast Regional Council which had concerns about flooding and conflicts with the planning scheme. Last year Sundale won the right to push ahead with Sundale CEO Glenn Bunney saying the complex will “absolutely” fill a real need for aged care in the area. But not so good for the koalas.

Approval for a Uniting Care development at Sunrise Beach will see five hectares of native bush, including prime Glossy Black Cockatoo food trees, destroyed early in the new year. The final go ahead was given by Noosa Council in 2017 following a ten year gap since initial approval had been granted in 2008.

We are told there is no other way.

A Noosa Council Housing Needs Assessment released in 2017 showed a shortage of affordable and appropriate aged care accommodation, and a scarcity of suitable land to cater for this. The number of people requiring care was forecast to well outstrip available capacity – and that included projects still on the drawing board. This is a genuine social problem.

The Housing Needs Assessment also itemised other emerging housing issues in Noosa Shire, including:

• Housing affordability, especially for low income households and key workers;
• A lack of accessible or adaptable housing for older people and people with special needs;
• A mismatch of housing size and household size;
• A lack of housing diversity, particularly smaller dwellings;
• Low levels of social and emergency housing;
• A conflict between resident and visitor accommodation.

Furthermore, the assessment found that the shire’s housing was not well suited to the demographic profile, that people’s housing stress was high and that accommodation affordability was impacted by a toxic combination of low median income and high median accommodation cost.

Noosa people earn about $300 below the State average income each week, and 5-10% more income is needed in Noosa Shire for people to afford a dwelling compared to the next most pressured local government area which was the Gold Coast.

Specific housing needs cover a daunting scope: people with disabilities, low income families, youth, key workers, people at risk of homelessness, people escaping domestic violence, tourists and visitors, and the elderly, about which the report states:

“There is currently a shortfall in Residential Aged Care provision. Even with the additional currently proposed facilities, further Residential Aged Care will be required in Noosa Shire in the future to meet the needs of the ageing population. There is currently a theoretical shortfall in the ratio of independent living units, and all currently approved/proposed Retirement Villages would need to proceed to meet demand in the future.”

I need to make it clear here that the problem being discussed is aged care not resort-style retirement villages for the wealthy, although there are more of these facilities being built.

But the preponderance and range of need for accommodation that goes even beyond aged care is daunting and, unless the matter is addressed quickly, strategically and with the environment also in mind, Noosa seems to be heading towards a situation where certain classes of people, and particularly sub-median income families and older women, will be pushed out by affordability. Is that the kind of community we want? An elitist bubble?

In response to this growing threat, Noosa – in a small way – is seeing the first signs of a tiny house trend. In a moving article on ON Jimmy Hirst wrote about the experience of his elderly parents:

“We currently treat our elderly as if they have little value and put them out to pasture in retirement villages, and we house them in these estates to get them out of the way so we can afford to have them looked after until they die. There is little thought gone into their humanity, their value and need for meaningful community, or the value exchange of wisdom. No matter how much you pay for your care. A far different picture to many non-western cultures who keep the elderly ageing in community and treat them like family into their late years. Is this really the best way we can do this?”

We need more innovative approaches to aged care.

Noosa Council may have limited land to release, but there is plenty of farmland in the region that could be used for affordable housing. An innovative approach like the Cedarbrook Aged Care facility at Mudgeeraba integrates a farm where animals are looked after by students from a local school in a concept that connects young and old while keeping residents active and engaged.

New approaches are needed such as the Netherlands model where university students live rent free in nursing homes in exchange for 30 hours a month of their time to help aged people with shopping, teaching them internet skills and effectively being neighbours.

At a local government level we need to focus less on ‘bells and whistles’ and thought bubbles and more on the real needs of what kind of community we want – ideally a diverse, engaged and a close knit community where residents are committed to maintaining the best built and natural environments, where they look out for each other and where they demand that their council responds appropriately.

This will not be easy. The pressures that weigh against it happening are already growing.

I hope that Uniting Care’s claims of commitment to stewardship of the environment will take both the Glossies and the social vulnerability of the community into account as they progress plans for the Sunrise development. With a sustainability goal to strengthen engagement in environmental advocacy and leadership by 2020, I truly hope that Uniting Care can find a better way of ensuring that aged care and nature don’t collide but complement each other and establish a model for this community.