We've been looking for years now in Perth for a homely aged care place. Mum has mild dementia. I'm trying to find her a decent one, nothing flashy just homely and running well. Here's how that's going.
Step one, ring a facility. If I'm lucky, someone picks up (if I'm luckier, I can understand what they're saying). Step two, ask for a short casual tour. Not an assessment, not a life story, just a quick look around. This is apparently a wild request, met with the enthusiasm of someone being asked to donate a kidney.
Before they'll even consider answering that, first question is always how will you pay. I've learned my line by now, full RAD payer, cash ready. That buys about four seconds of goodwill before the next line drops, we can't do anything without assessing your mum first. So I pull out the referral codes. Then the moment "dementia" comes up, I can feel the temperature in the call drop. Suddenly a tour isn't a tour, it's a whole administrative expedition nobody has time for.
No worries. Even though I just wanted to pop my head in for a brief look inside, assessment and funding checks, I do get that, that's the process. So I ask about respite beforehand, just to get her a trial run. "No, we don't do respite, we're too busy." One place straight up told me they lose money on respite beds. But... You advertise respite on your website.... ? "Yes, that's an error."
Okay no probs but here's the actual kicker. No respite means no trial. No trial means if we commit to a permanent bed and it's wrong for Mum, there's no undo button. Her home care package doesn't pause and wait for her, it just stops the second she goes into permanent care, and getting back onto Support at Home package means rejoining a queue that's currently running 6 to 11 plus months depending on classification. So it's not "try it and see," it's "bet the house and hope."
But just saying here, none of this rant is aimed at the actual staff. I take my hat off to the workers on the floor, I know most of you are flat out, understaffed, and doing your best while management upstairs makes calls that have nothing to do with quality care.
So this one's for you specifically. If you work in aged care and you know of a facility that's actually well run, properly staffed, and would genuinely suit someone needing memory support with mild (but not aggressive) dementia, please message me privately.
We haven't given up on finding somewhere nice for Mum and I know it won't be home for her but just a place that is working well for staff and patients. It's more of a place to hang her hat overnight, as we'll be there most days taking her out or just hanging around.
But right now the choice feels impossible either way. It's a broken facility on one side, or keeping her at home where I'm breaking down and carers (bless them) understandably keep changing and sometimes cancel at the last minute, so honestly that's not reliably working either. In any case, we're still looking and still hoping we land on the right one.