By Michael Doran
The choice of which aged care facility for a loved is a difficult decision for a family to make. A question posed to the facility in the process might be ‘would you place your loved ones here’?
Healesville’s Holmwood Aged Care can answer that question with a resounding yes, pointing to nine of their staff caring for their own family members.
Holmwood Manager, Rachel Brown said she is very proud that staff members are happy to have their family members cared for in the facility.
“Its an honour to be asked to care for a staff members loved one,” she said. “The trust they are putting in us means so much to us all.
“It’s great that they choose to work here but to then ask us to care for their own family speaks volumes that they put the care our team delivers above all others.
“Our residents become our family, our visitors are extended families and our staff, well they are family as well. Family has and will always be a founding virtue and one of the cores to our home-like environment.”
The current roll-call of family connections shows four staff with grandparents, four staff with parents and one staff member with a sibling in residence.
“Its very special to be able to come to work and be able to spend time with your family,” said Ben O’Brien, Lifestyle Coordinator at Holmwood. “The resident gets a lot of pride out of seeing someone they have watched growing up now helping out their fellow residents.”
Family connections are also intertwined in the staff ranks with six mother and daughters, one father and daughter and three sets of sisters working together.
Holmwood has been serving the community for more than 40 years and has seen many changes in that time, including a new wing and another under construction. With so many close personal connections it seems their core value of family-centred approach to care is being lived to the full.
