industry & policy
a yes.” He says that even if at the end we realise that we can’t
do something, the approach is to try and have a yes, can-do
approach, which I think is very important, especially in an industry
like ours, which is so regulated and so bureaucratic and there are
so many things we cannot do because of risk and bureaucracy. So,
with him, he’s like, if somebody wants to smoke at the age of 90,
let them smoke. He’s says it brings them joy. If somebody wants to
have a cream cake when they have diabetes and they’re very old,
he says give them that choice. It’s all about dignity. It’s all about
choice. It’s all about allowing people to choose how they want to
live the last years of their life as opposed to just focusing on risk
and safety.
So his whole philosophy is quite out there, and it was inspiring to
hear somebody so fresh, to hear how when we’re in our 20s and
30s and 40s, we’re making these choices, so there’s no reason that
that should change in our 80s or 90s.
The trip inspired you to focus more on creating a space that
connects people to long-term memories. In what ways did
Humanitas achieve that?
Humanitas has this incredible setup. It’s in the basement of their
retirement village and it’s about 10–15 rooms that have different
setups of an old kitchen, an old dining room, an old living room,
and it’s all based on furnishings and appliances and equipment
from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. A lot of the people who are
aged now would have grown up in that era, and those would have
been the kitchens they would have cooked in or their parents
would have cooked in, or used the different equipment like record
players and different washing machines and even dishwashers that
were from that time. It had a carpentry room and a dolls room.
It was beautifully set up with all the different things that could
take people down memory lane and make them feel again that
there’s purpose and meaning, but it also prompts their memory.
And what was lovely about it was that it was all hands-on. So
they brought people down in wheelchairs to these rooms and
they could just sit there and go down memory lane. And you saw
people smiling and enjoying just being there. It was like being in
their own homes for a moment.
Do you have any early plans or ideas about how you’ll go about
emulating that across your homes?
At Group Homes Australia we already encourage people to bring
their personal items, and sometimes it can be an old phone, an
Personalised kitchen in a Humanitas home.
Photo: Group Homes Australia
old iron, an old fixture or pictures, and personalise the space with
as many things from their own homes so it makes their new home
feel like a home. We’re definitely going to encourage that more.
Sometimes we say of old things, “Oh, it’s junk, throw it out”, but
it’s actual treasure. If you could create reminiscing boxes where
residents can open their boxes and have things that were from
their childhood, that’s really meaningful to them.
What other changes mi