A new community health centre will be built at TLC Marina Aged Care home in Altona North.
The centre will be open to the home’s residents and the broader community and will include GPs, physiotherapy, radiology, pathology and other allied health services, along with respite care.
TLC Aged Care plans to spend $120 million on community health centres at its 10 homes across Victoria.
It will also install playgrounds and outdoor entertainment areas to encourage families to visit elderly relatives and use the on-site health services.
TLC Aged Care chief executive Lou Pascuzzi said integrating aged care accommodation with primary health care was the “only way to improve the standard of care [for residents] while reducing costs’’.
Mr Pascuzzi said GPs and other service providers were often reluctant to visit aged care homes because Medicare benefits didn’t adequately compensate them for travel and expenses.
“We cannot continue with existing healthcare models [for aged care homes]that are becoming financially untenable for present day governments and will only get worse over time,” he said.
“We need to make these centres part of the community, not hide them away as if we’re ashamed of them.
‘‘We should be proud of our elderly citizens and the way we care for them.”
