Inquiry into the provision and regulation of supported accommodation in Queensland
Submission No: 178
Submitted by: PF (submitted by Queenslanders with Disability Network) Publication:
Attachments:
Submitter Comments:
Transcript – 00:00:00 Speaker 1
My name is
00:00:03 Speaker 1
The facility that I'm living in is . My phone number is and I
do not want to maintain confidenƟality. I’m happy for anyone to to hear my story.
00:00:23 Speaker 1
If it, if it concerns them. I’ve been here since early December so.
00:00:31 Speaker 1
Almost two months.
00:00:33 Speaker 1
I came here on short noƟce aŌer staying with my sister. Our circumstances changed. We’d plan to live together unƟl around reƟrement age, which will be about another.
00:00:46 Speaker 1
Those circumstances changed. Her ex husband died.
00:00:49 Speaker 1
Cancer in September and she now has full Ɵme custody with her two boys. So we were sharing a three bedroom unit.
00:00:58 Speaker 1
And now that the boys are living there again full Ɵme, we decided it was best if they each have their own room.
00:01:04 Speaker 1
So I needed to find a place on short noƟce and she having worked in the care industry suggest.
00:01:14 Speaker 1
, because she is familiar with puƫng clients of hers into assisted housing. So she suggested I live.
00:01:23 Speaker 1
Here and.
00:01:25 Speaker 1
I did it. It was.
00:01:27 Speaker 1
It was the easiest opƟon. It was quick, it was simple. It was sold to me as.
00:01:33 Speaker 1
I say sold to me it was the the the pitch was that it was a good place to be, if you.
00:01:39 Speaker 1
Need assistance, counselling, food, cleaning, laundry. All those things are taken care of, which was ideal.
00:01:52 Speaker 1
For for people that need that level of care I don’t need.
00:01:58 Speaker 1
As higher level of care as some people here do, and that’s OK. I’m fine with that. So I pay a litle less than they do. I get my I have my own room, ample cupboard space. I share a bathroom. The beds provided a chair. A table.
00:02:19 Speaker 1
Food is provided here, although I don’t. Personally, I don’t. I don’t eat it.
00:02:25 Speaker 1
I think it’s a very poor quality.
00:02:29 Speaker 1
It’s highly processed.
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High in sugar, low in fibre, low in fresh vegetables.
00:02:38 Speaker 1
Whole cuts of meat are non existent apart from well, yeah. Chicken thighs. I’m not saying every meal here is awful, but if given given the choice, if I wasn’t on my own specially formulated diet, I wouldn’t need it.
00:02:52 Speaker 1
And other people have said that to me too, there’s residents here.
00:02:58 Speaker 1
Who have one way or the other being incarcerated, and they also have said.
00:03:06 Speaker 1
That they would be beter off in gaol as far as the living condiƟons go, food wise, room wise, faciliƟes, acƟviƟes in prison, all those things are taken care of well.
00:03:19 Speaker 1
But not here.
00:03:22 Speaker 1
It’s clear to me it became clear to me, you know, I’ve had this confirmed that it placed is is run for profit.
00:03:34 Speaker 1
The general problem I find with faciliƟes.
00:03:37 Speaker 1
That are run for.
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Profit aged care especially.
00:03:49 Speaker 1
Not a lot of that money is put back into the facility.
00:03:54 Speaker 1
Because there’s investors and owners and people that need a certain amount of profit. So there’s a lot of money being paid by residents.
00:04:03 Speaker 1
In here I’ll use this place as an example. Of course I’ve done.
00:04:08 Speaker 1
The maths not specifically to at any higher standard, but say for example let’s we’ll say 30 people here or an average of $500 a week, that’s $15,000 a week.
00:04:20 Speaker 1
And that’s just a ballpark figure. And I was spoken to by the residents and and and asked them, where do you think this money’s?
00:04:27 Speaker 1
Going where do?
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You think $15,000 a week is going.
00:04:32 Speaker 1
None of us can see value for money.
00:04:34 Speaker 1
Staying here?
00:04:36 Speaker 1
It’s it’s very difficult to get any kind of maintenance done.
00:04:41 Speaker 1
If if the problem can’t be patched up.
00:04:46 Speaker 1
I I made complaints about the number of flies in the kitchenete area. The screen was broken. I pointed this out to grant on.
00:04:56 Speaker 1
Christmas Day there was a funcƟon here.
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So that was a Monday.
00:05:03 Speaker 1
And I pointed it out to him while he was here. It took.
00:05:05 Speaker 1
Me a week.
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To get that fixed, he said. Well, I’ll go and get.
00:05:10 Speaker 1
I think is the worker, but he said I’ll go and get. I’ll get that fixed right away.
00:05:14 Speaker 1
Five days later, I went to a kitchen staff member and and said look.
00:05:21 Speaker 1
This is a real problem. Can we get something done so even even from the owner, I didn’t get any saƟsfacƟon.
00:05:27 Speaker 1
It took a week.
00:05:33 Speaker 1
There’s there’s, there’s a lot of problems here.
00:05:38 Speaker 1
With security fly screens, the cleanliness of the place that could be resolved easily, but because they’re expensive, fly screens on the on outside doors and and windows. So there’s fly screens in people’s rooms but not on the outside of the building.
00:05:58 Speaker 1
So it’s it’s just a a bandage soluƟon really. There’s sƟll a lot of flies around. I I sit in my room with my cane with morƟne everyday, just bombing flies.
00:06:09 Speaker 1
And this flies in the kitchen.
00:06:11 Speaker 1
There’s flies in the cooking area where staff cooked. There’s flies in the dining room.
00:06:15 Speaker 1
It’s a real problem, but it’s too expensive to fix, apparently because that money eats into profits.
00:06:25 Speaker 1
Uhm, what else? There’s one tap in the in the shower.
00:06:31 Speaker 1
So I can’t have a cold shower in summer Ɵme. It’s hot.
00:06:37 Speaker 1
And I dare say in winter Ɵme it won’t be hot.
00:06:39 Speaker 1
Enough. It’s too hot in summer, won’t be cold and it won’t be hot enough in winter.
00:06:46 Speaker 1
There’s an 8:00 PM curfew. They lock the doors.
00:06:52 Speaker 1
They, they. They.
00:06:55 Speaker 1
They seem to really strip me of my autonomy here. I I can’t self medicate, although I’ve been doing that for 20 years. All of a sudden they’ve got to be doled out to me every day.
00:07:09 Speaker 1
I can’t go and get my own prescripƟons. I’ve gota hand them in, that’s all controlled.
00:07:13 Speaker 1
By by staff.
00:07:17 Speaker 1
It’s it, it seems.
00:07:23 Speaker 1
That there’s a there’s a real there’s a real power imbalance between the people that work here and the residence. There’s definitely an US and them not everyone together, as you’d expect in their assistance facility. It’s called assisted living.
00:07:39 Speaker 1
But it’s it’s quite authoritarian, actually. It’s it’s really a will tell you what’s going on and you’ll do it.
00:07:47 Speaker 1
I’ve offered suggesƟons.
00:07:50 Speaker 1
Regarding systems that could be handled beter.
00:07:55 Speaker 1
And was told no. This is the way it’s going to be by the owner.
00:08:03 Speaker 1
So it’s the instead of working with management and sharing ideas about how things should work beter for everyone, for the staff, for the residents, we’re just told no, this is the way it is.
00:08:15 Speaker 1
Which isn’t a soluƟon and and.
00:08:18 Speaker 1
It it makes the IT no one, no one’s happy.
00:08:20 Speaker 1
About it.
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Because nothing gets fixed.
00:08:24 Speaker 1
It’s when you’re living in, in that every day it’s it’s quite counterproducƟve, actually quite depressing and frustraƟng.
00:08:33 Speaker 1
It’s it’s just so hard to get simple things fixed because.
00:08:40 Speaker 1
That’s not the what? That’s not the way it is, the way.
00:08:42 Speaker 1
It is.
00:08:42 Speaker 1
Is we’ll tell you.
00:08:45 Speaker 1
We’ll tell you that there’s nothing in the kitchenete. We’re not going to get a bit in the kitchenete.
00:08:51 Speaker 1
My argument was well, it’s a food preparing area. Why can’t we have?
00:08:54 Speaker 1
A bin and the answer was, I’ll tell you how it’s going to be. There’ll be no bin in there.
00:09:01 Speaker 1
Which I just find completely astounding.
00:09:05 Speaker 1
So it’s it’s quite at all at all. It’s a.
00:09:07 Speaker 1
Very negaƟve experience living here. It’s my first experience with assisted living the the the, the counselling that was alluded to when I was.
00:09:18 Speaker 1
When I was being interviewed for living here by the manager, was completely non-existent.
00:09:24 Speaker 1
The only qualified councillors here are are people from outside the organisaƟon, from Inreach. And if you don’t have or if you aren’t assigned an NDS worker or an inreach worker, there is no counselling. There is no assistance for mental health issues.
00:09:44 Speaker 1
It just doesn’t happen.
00:09:46 Speaker 1
How much more of this do you want to?