AS you have now been made aware, the Stanthorpe Nursing Home is to close down as of 11 December, 2015.

Apparently it has become uneconomic to run it. The staff and managers of this nursing home have dedicated their time and compassion to the residents and family for 46 years. My dad has been a resident for the past 10 years and my family and I have had the comfort of knowing that he is well looked after and indeed treated more like a family member than a patient.

I find it appalling that in Australia in 2015 our elderly can be disregarded due to economic reasons. Why is it that our government can find money to send to foreign shores, to fund public monuments of sporting stars and support generations of welfare recipients, but cannot find the money to look after our elderly in their own communities, when they have worked and fought for this country?

Yes I am grateful that all of the residents will be re homed. But re homed not in their own community where their families can visit them regularly, if indeed they have family!

The wonderful staff are doing their best to accommodate the residents as close to home as possible, but the reality of the matter is that nursing home beds are in short supply already. It is my understanding that some residents will have to go as far away as Dalby, Millmeran or Toowoomba. The travelling time to these areas is in excess of two hours. For some of the residents, having friends and family visit on a regular basis is the only joy they have in their day and the only contact they have with the outside world. However, many of the family members of these residents are old and of ill health themselves, making travelling any distance impossible. My elderly mother, for one, will be unable to make this journey regularly and safely. The distress that this is causing the residents, their families and the staff is nothing short of cruel.

And what is the fate of those who are currently on the waiting list for this facility and who in the next few years will need placement, as they have reached their twilight years and are no longer able to be cared for in their own homes?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that in 2013, 38.7% of the population of Stanthorpe was over the age of 55 years. The fact of the matter is that we are an ageing population and each year we will have the need for more nursing home places, not less. This issue is not going to go away.

Of course there is also the issue of the staff, who just before Christmas are left with the distress of becoming jobless in a town where jobs are few and far between.

This decision is absolutely ludicrous and beyond comprehension!!!

Yours sincerely

Concerned citizen and family member of a Stanthorpe Nursing Home resident.