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Germanus Kent House resident Bertha Linty and care worker Victoria Gardener
Listen and connect
WA facility finds success by paying closer
attention to the needs of Aboriginal residents,
and offers plan as a template for other sites.
L
eaders of a West Australian aged-care facility have said their
pastoral care approach, designed to meet the needs of
Aboriginal residents, could be reproduced in other
aged-care communities.
Rosemary Hogan, head of residential care at Southern Cross
Care (WA), said the approach, called Galiya Mabudyan, or ‘Life is
good’, could be done elsewhere. At its heart, she said, it was an
understanding of what was most important to residents regarding
their pastoral and spiritual care needs.
Germanus Kent House in Broome developed the approach,
which won a Better Practice Award from the Australian Aged Care
Quality Agency last year, after receiving feedback from a resident’s
family members who had travelled to visit.
Most of the site’s residents are Aboriginal and more than half
lived in remote Aboriginal communities prior to entering the
service. Hogan said the residents came from disparate areas
throughout Western Australia and the Northern Territory. “We are
looking to try to meet the needs of people who come from these
different communities and perspectives,” she said.
The team held a series of focus groups with residents,
translators, Aboriginal liaison officers, family members and
Aboriginal staff. Among the outcomes was a collective approach
to memory, relationships and storytelling.
Hogan said one of the biggest differences the project has made
is a better connection between residents and the communities
where they lived.
She said that, as with many projects, facilities looking to adopt
the approach would need a couple of champions to deliver the
change. “That’s always reproducible in residential aged care,” she
said, explaining that other important components were required
as well, including a willingness to learn and a passion for putting
residents first. ■
Look out!
Study finds half the world will be
shortsighted by 2050; researchers
say more time outdoors, less
reading from tablets can help.
H
alf the world’s population will be
shortsighted by 2050, with many
at risk of blindness, a study on the
rapidly increasing prevalence of myopia
has found.
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agedcareinsite.com.au
Myopia is already a common cause
of vision loss. Uncorrected myopia is
the leading cause of distance vision
impairment globally. The researchers
estimated the condition would affect
55.1 per cent of the Australasian population
by 2050, up from 19.7 per cent in 2000, if
current trends continue.
The rapid increase of myopia and high
myopia are widely considered to be
driven mostly by people spending less
time outdoors and more time on
‘near-based activities’, including the use
of electronic devices.
The findings point to a major public
health problem, said the study’s authors,
from Brien Holden Vision Institute, the
University of New South Wales and the
Singapore Eye Research Institute. Their
systematic review and meta-analysis,
published in the journal Ophthalmology,
included data from 145 studies.
The researchers estimated that 49.8 per
cent of the world’s population, nearly
5 billion people, would be shortsighted by
2050. Up to one-fifth of them wo