Aged care home resumes bus outings

A Woy Woy aged care home has resumed bus outings for its residents.

One of the first trips for Blue Wave Living residents was to Patonga last week.

"NSW Health has finally allowed this to occur, as long as it is an outing to an outdoor venue and there is minimised contact with other people," said BlueWave Living chief executive Mr Matt Downie.

"This has been one of the many frustrating aspects of managing the risk of Covid for our residents, and it has been many months now since we have been able to take residents on an outing.

"This will be a wonderful opportunity for many of our residents, especially those who don't have immediate family nearby, also very opportune as we move through spring towards warmer weather."

Mr Downie said: "We are all looking forward to further relaxation of restrictions, which can only occur with all within the community participating and doing the right thing.

"We appreciate everyone's efforts in assisting with this process over many months.

"The success of a coordinated approach is clear in Victoria, where there has been resounding success at suppressing the spread of the virus, and there are now only a handful of active cases across the aged care network in Victoria.

"With Covid now seemingly well managed within Australia, it is easy to become complacent.

"However the risk remains real, and until there is a viable vaccine widely implemented, the virus could still be circulating largely undetected and pose a potential risk to our elders.

"While we are relaxing many restrictions as community cases diminish, there will have to remain some measures in place for the foreseeable future.

"Most of these restrictions are legislated and we are obligated to have them in place.

"Some of the restrictions we may impose we do so as part of our on-going risk assessment."

SOURCE:

Newsletter, 10 Nov 2020

Matt Downie, BlueWave Living