industry & policy
Dignity and choice
A personalised room in a Humanitas home . Photo : Group Homes Australia
Lessons in aged care from the Netherlands .
Tamar Krebs interviewed by Dallas Bastian
14 agedcareinsite . com . au
An unapologetic approach to care and a focus on resident choice .
These are two of the tenets of a Dutch approach to aged care that struck founder and chief executive of Group Homes Australia , Tamar Krebs , during her recent trip to the Netherlands .
Krebs flew there to meet with Dr Hans Becker , chairman of Humanitas , a provider that champions a model of care that focuses on self-determination and resident empowerment .
“ In the Netherlands , they try to keep people in their local communities , no matter what their level of frailties ,” Krebs said . “ However , when they get dementia , the idea is to introduce them into social models in the community .”
Similarly , Group Homes Australia ’ s facilities are situated in local communities , allowing residents to stay in familiar environments . However , according to Krebs , there is always room for improvement .
“ We would like to personalise the homes even more ,” she explained . “ Humanitas introduced the concept of creating a space that brings [ people ] back to their long-term memories , by using meaningful artefacts from their generation or period around the home . These artefacts help them to adjust .”
Aged Care Insite sat down with Krebs to find out more about Humanitas ’ approach to care and the lessons she learnt in the Netherlands that can be applied in Australia .
ACI : First of all , what were you hoping to get out of the trip ? TK : I think it ’ s important as industry leaders to constantly be open to see other models of care and the way other countries and cultures are delivering dementia care . The Dutch are world renowned for their innovation and approach to dignity and choice in aged care . This whole philosophy has been going on there for about 30 years . They have quite innovative models , from the De Hogeweyk model , which is the dementia village that lots of people have heard of , and CNN has done a big blurb on , to Humanitas and Dr Hans Becker . He ’ s been very innovative with the whole ‘ yes ’ culture and talking about all of his approach to aged care .
Then there is the whole group homes model , which is what we , Group Homes Australia , do here in Australia . We ’ re the first to do that here , but I really wanted to see what they were doing in the Netherlands . They ’ ve been doing it for the last 30 years , so I wanted to see how the model had evolved .
Why did you decide to seek out Humanitas in particular out of all of the models of care in the Netherlands ? I ’ ve been following Dr Hans Becker for quite a while . He came out to Australia probably in 2009 and I went to a talk of his , and what struck me is he said then , and he also said it when we came to Humanitas , that “ in the Netherlands , it ’ s not about cure and care .” He said : “ The focus unfortunately has become about curing aged people .”
He said : “ Age is not a disease , but we have to create interesting things for people to talk about when they ’ re ageing . Otherwise , it ’ s all about the aches and pains that they have .”
And so he does some really ‘ out there ’, crazy things like bringing elephants into the retirement village , camels into the retirement village , having wheelchair races . Things that essentially you ’ d think something really crazy is going on , but it creates conversation . It makes people laugh . It makes people forget about their aches and pains and especially , as people are becoming more vulnerable , his philosophy is about giving them more things to talk about and not focus on their vulnerabilities and the loss of what age brings . And so his whole approach is the ‘ yes ’ approach .
He says : “ We always start in the company with