Premier

Construction Underway On New Aged Care Facility

23 July 2018

Construction is underway on the new $55.6 million residential aged care facility at St George’s Health Service in Kew, funded by the Andrews Labor Government.

Minister for Housing, Disability and Ageing, Martin Foley turned the first sod on the 90-bed facility today, which will include aged persons’ mental health beds and will be operated by St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne.

The architecturally designed aged care facility is scheduled to be completed late next year and will better support a contemporary model of residential aged care, particularly for those with complex care needs.

The new buildings have been designed to providing a more home-like environment with private rooms, garden outlooks and access to domestic style kitchens.

Located on the same site as St George’s Health Service, residents will have ready access to a broad range of medical, rehabilitation and allied health care services, as well as a new on-site ambulance depot.

The Labor Government also announced $1.1 million to provide specialist training to a thousand public sector health and aged care nurses, to improve the treatment and care of our elderly Victorians.

The training will help nurses better identify and manage a range of physical and mental health issues commonly experienced by older people.

The training will be led by the Australian Nurses and Midwifery Federation in partnership with La Trobe University and will begin in September.

This will be complemented by training being rolled out by the Public Sector Residential Aged Care (PSRAC) Leadership Committee targeting senior nurses about how improved practice can be embedded in operations.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Housing, Disability and Ageing Martin Foley

“This is the biggest investment for public sector residential aged care in metropolitan Melbourne for more than a decade and will have benefits for the whole community.”

“We said we’d end the Liberal sell-off of public age care beds and we have. Now we’re building much-needed public beds in aged care for Victorians who desperately need them, boosting health care and creating jobs.”

“The people who work in these facilities are just as important as the physical environment, which is why we’re also investing in our aged care workforce by providing additional training to these highly-skilled professionals.”

Reviewed 19 August 2020

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