Residents have been urged to fight plans by the area health service to reallocate general ward beds to nursing home residents.

About 300 people attended a public meeting last Thursday called by the Muswellbrook branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA).

The meeting opposed plans by Hunter New England Health to close the nursing home and move residents onto Level 1 of the hospital, to make way for a new ground-floor emergency department (ED).

Kay O’Brien, president of the Muswellbrook branch of the NSWNMA, said it was up to residents to voice their opinion.

“It is up to you, the community, to take up this fight to keep the nursing home where it is until an alternative is found,” she said.

Mrs O’Brien, a registered nurse, said Muswellbrook hospital had “been band-aided for 30-odd years and the wounds are not healing.”

“Muswellbrook deserves better,” she said.

The meeting unanimously voted for Muswellbrook Shire Council to write to NSW health minister Jillian Skinner, on behalf of the community, to ask for the relocation of aged care residents to be put on hold.

The resolution said “this meeting totally opposes the proposed closure of one third of the hospital beds for the express purpose of the aged care resident’s relocation”.

The council will also request the $4 million budgeted for the new emergency department to be carried forward into a future budget and the ED built after a new nursing home is constructed.

Hunter MP Joel Fitzgibbon and Upper Hunter MP George Souris were unable to attend the meeting, due to previous commitments.

New facility in two years

Muswellbrook's 18 high dependency aged care beds will not be bought by Little Company of Mary Health Care.

Calvary CEO Mark Doran told the Muswellbrook Chronicle it had been in discussions with the government but had decided to “go in a different direction”.

Little Company of Mary is the parent group of Calvary, which operates Muswellbrook’s Mt Providence aged hostel.

Mr Doran said the decision had been influenced by new safety regulations, introduced in the wake of the nursing home fire in Sydney’s Quakers Hill which killed 11 residents in 2011.

“We don’t own the land at Mt Providence, we lease it,” he said.

“And following on from the Quakers Hill fire, the government has introduced mandatory sprinklering of aged care facilities.

“We estimated that this would incur about a $300,000 bill at Mt Providence, so we decided we were better off starting from scratch.”

Mr Doran said the organisation had 60 aged care licences it needed to develop.

Last week it was announced the Little Company of Mary board had approved the purchase of Muswellbrook's Brennan Park for the development of an integrated aged care community, subject to due diligence being completed on the property and terms being agreed. 

The new facility would include a 60-bed high and low care facility and around 32 independent living units.

Residents from Mt Providence would be relocated to the new site.

Mr Doran said Calvary hoped the new aged care community in Muswellbrook would be completed in about two years.

“Everybody knows this is the best solution,” Mr Doran said.

“We are expanding the number of beds in Muswellbrook, which will also mean more employment.

“We were in discussions with the state government, but we just decided to go the conventional way.

“But we have a great relationship with them, and also with Muswellbrook council.”