practical living
cites Deborah as the driving force behind
BCAC’s successes.
“We’ve had this tremendous interaction
with BCAC, and I think the critical thing to
the success there has really been Deborah.
“And fundamentally, Deborah is driven by
establishing an aged care centre that’s very
strongly focused on wellness,” he says.
FRESH AND TRANQUIL
I walk with Deborah throughout the rest
of BCAC’s facilities and it is everything
an outsider would imagine an aged care
facility should be. Clean, fresh and tranquil,
the newly renovated dementia wing is
equipped with dementia-friendly design,
which is evident in the gardens with activity
rooms here and there along the way.
There are the 1950s-style lounge
rooms, old-style laundry rooms, and large,
comfortable meeting rooms designed with
family gatherings in mind – all made so
that living well is the norm for residents.
We bump into Bruce, who is sitting next
to his napping wife – almost, it seems,
taking a nap himself. He springs to life when
he notices Deborah. He embraces her and
shakes my hand vigorously as he tells me
how much he loves Deborah and this place.
Deborah later tells me that Bruce – who
lives in the nearby retirement village and
pops up every day to see his wife in the
aged care facility – volunteers, along with
other men, in the new ‘men’s shed’ BCAC
has built in the dementia facility.
We walk in on a joint kids and residents
singing session in the dementia respite
centre, every face looking happy as they
clap and nod and sing.
All of this is part of the community feel,
Deborah says. The word community comes
up a lot throughout the day.
THE CARER’S VIEW
Doug Heard also has a lot of good things
to say about BCAC. He’s the reason for
my visit.
In Doug’s words, BCAC is not perfect,
“no place is, but it’s as close as you can get”.
Doug came into contact with BCAC
when both his parents couldn’t look after
themselves and they needed some home
care assistance, and again later with his
neighbour, Irene, for whom he eventually
acted as carer.
“They were excellent in providing home-
based service – excellent, very polite, very
caring,” he told me over a cup of tea.
During his career, Doug worked for
the Department of Housing. After saving
up 2500-odd leave hours (“I come from
the old school where you don’t take
sickies unless you’re sick,” he tells me),
he took a year off work to look after his
ageing parents.
“You learn a lot,” he says, “when you’re
looking after people with dementia.”
He recounts times in that year when
he would throw away food in his parents’
bin, only to find his mother had fished it
out again. Or the time when he stopped
in his car across the road from his dad –
who had wandered off – only to see his
father march across the road towards
him without looking.
“So the next time, I would drive up the
road, drive past him, and pull up on the
same side of the road!”
Eventually, after his father passed away,
his mother went to BCAC on a short
two-week respite, which “with a little bit
of reluctance” led to her staying full-time.
She lived there for 12 years until her passing
at age 92.
Doug praises the attentive and
consultative nature of the staff. On the rare
occasion when he has had a complaint, he
says things have been taken care of quickly
and without fuss.
Doug even donated half the $50,000 he
won in a raffle to BCAC, which went to fund
some entertainment improvements at the
Yallambee Village.
Shortly after his mother’s passing, Doug
and his wife Karen started to care for Irene,
who has dementia. They looked after her
finances, cooking and cleaning, and took
her on holidays, until she too had to move
to Yallambee, where she’s been for the past
two years.
I’m enjoying talking with Doug. He is
very open and chatty, so I feel I can ask him
a couple of sensitive questions.
After all of the time spent caring for his
parents, what motivates him to look after
his neighbour as well?
“Well, she had no one,” he says.
“She had no children, and she was in a
house on her own.”
And were there times when it all got
too much?
“I’ve had some seriously tough days with
cancer,” he tells me.
Doug is on his fourth cancer episode. He
was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma
in 2008. He lists the treatments he’s had
over the years – including needles to the
back. I listen quietly, shaking my head now
and then in disbelief.
“I’ve felt like driving to the Gap and
jumping, especially when I got the second
cancer – this big one.” He points to his
BCAC chief, Deborah Key.
mouth and jaw, which looks swollen and
causes him to slur ever so slightly, and to
drink his tea through a straw.
“I had a cricket ball growing out of
my mouth. The operation was 15 and a
half hours.”
This topic is interrupted by a quick
detour into a conversation about how
much he loves paperwork, and how he
drops off a bottle of port every year to
the doctor who saved his life.
Doug often starts his sentences with
“to cut a long story short”, but his stories
are rarely short. He enjoys talking to people,
and I can see the qualities that make him
a good carer.
As I think about Doug, and how I would
describe him, the word ‘character’ keeps
coming to mind. He is a character in the
best sense of the word. His speech is
peppered with rhyming slang, like “tray bits”
(I’ll let you figure that one out), and light-
hearted dad jokes.
Another word that comes to mind
is ‘community’. Doug has always been
involved in the community, whether it be
coaching every one of his son’s soccer
teams (he has five), or being the president
of the local school P&C, or being a member
of the Revesby Workers’ Club charity
committee.
“I guess I am very community minded,”
Doug agrees after I suggest it a few times.
“If anyone needs a hand, then I’ll give
them a hand. It gives you something to do.”
Deborah knocks on the door to let us
know someone has booked the room we’re
in. She and Doug banter back and forth
a little. “I talk too much,” he says.
“No,” she feigns sarcastically.
“I’m telling him all the bad stuff,” he
jokes back.
I finish my day at BCAC by asking Doug,
as he drinks his tea through a straw, if he
worries about one day going into residential
aged care himself. To cut a long story short,
no, was his reply. ■
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