Location / Jackson Lounge Morling Lodge
Present / John Bonnici (Chair); Sharon Ley, Jill Dexter, Rosemary Chester, Kevin Carlson, Shirley Smith - Resident/ Family members as per attendance list
Apologies
Discussion Content (Summary of significant information)
Opening / The meeting was opened by John Bonnici at 11:00hrs
Minutes
Comments / John greeted the residents and family members to the meeting to discuss Griffith and the transition to the new facility
Actions
Devotion given by Kevin Carlson explaining our new mission/vision/and values
“Transforming lives by expressing the love of Christ”
- Prayer by Reverend Carlson
Item 1 / Address and powerpoint given to the family by Sharon ley – as per powerpoint
Comments
Actions / John Bonnici has given an address to discuss the process of the transitioning of services, benefits to the residents:
Item 2 / Questions and answers
Comments / Discussionsupdate.
Q. Will the residents be able to have a chair in their room as the family had especially purchased it?
A. Every family member will be invited to meet with the commissioning team to discuss personal items going to Griffith. All rooms will be fully furnished but there may be concessions applied where residents may have a small item of furniture in their room.
Q. Are the windows double glazed?
A. The building has been built to be green and sustainable with features such as self-opening windows to cool in the summer.
Q. Where is the building in relation to Morling Lodge?
A. 51 Stuart street Griffith – on the corner of Blaxland a map and information will be provided to staff, residents, family, prior to moving. This Griffith welcome package will give information helpful to the transition.Location information is available on the dedicated website for BaptistCare Griffith and further information will be available in the front foyer of Morling Lodge in hard copy.
Q. Can we take our own family member to Griffith at the time of transfer?
A. Yes but this will need to be organised to fit in with the transfer of the non-ambulant residents on the day.
Q. Can we still bring in our dog to visit?
A. Yes if the pet would has an organized plan for visiting in line with existing policies.
Q. Premium services do they have a choice of meals?
A. Yes premium services will have a choice of 2 cooked options for breakfast and 3 options for lunch and dinnerincluding soup and salad options.
Q. Do all rooms have en suites
A. Yes all rooms have a bathroom to ensure privacy and decrease implications of infection control.
Q. Where are the single rooms in the facility and who will be moving into them?
A. Other than the Premium rooms and the dementia unit, single rooms are also located on the first floor and will cater forlow care residents. At the moment we are keeping a register of interest but no new low level residents will be admitted until all of the residents have been transferred from Morling Lodge and until we have finalised the admission policy for this area.
Q. How are high care rooms separated?
A. Furniture will be in between the beds which include chairs and bed side tables.
Additional: Families requested a floor plan of the current rooms and of the Griffith facility. This will be posted on the web site and hard copies left in Morling Lodge for collection by families.
Family members also requested photos of rooms with furniture placement so they can see the location of the bed/chairs/layout of the rooms
When BaptistCare are able to furnish a bedroom photos will be made available. Until this time floor plans with furniture in the rooms will be made available.
Q. What if you honestly believed you had been promised a single room in the new building?
A. Every family member will be asked to attend a meeting to discuss individual plans for their loved one with the aim to determine an accommodation plan for each resident.
Q. Are rooms fully furnished?
A. Yes an interior decorator was employed to choose furniture for the building.
Additional: For those interested the catalogue with room furnishings will be made available on the BaptistCare Griffith website and in the foyer of Morling Lodge.
Q. How are you going to overcome the difficulty of people sharing rooms especially if they exhibit behaviours?
A.Residents will be paired together taking into consideration their health and wellbeing to ensure like people are paired together. It will also be discussed at the individual family meetings.
Q. How can this be when other residents are disturbed during the night by others screaming?
A. Benefits of shared rooms include: friendship and companionship of another which decreases loneliness and depression. The existing care planning process in place within residential homes attends to the management of certain behaviours of residents that may be disruptive and this works well. In some instances there is a need to work with families to transfer their loved one to an alternative room.
Q. Request for a bedroom plan to have a better idea of room size
A.A floor plan will be made available for all residents and family both on the web page and also in hard copy at Morling Lodge. This will provide a comparison of the existing room structure at Morling Lodge compared to the room structures at Griffith.
Additional: Information was handed out to the family and residents outlining the link on the BaptistCare Griffith web page.
Q. Some residents have their TV loud in their rooms. Won’t this affect the other resident in the shared room?
A Discussion is being held with procurement in regards to headsets for the TV’s in the shared rooms to decrease disruption. A part of this process moving forward is to developed a set of shared principles for living together that residents and families will help devise. These principles will identify how we will live together.
Q. How will we hang pictures in the new building?
A. Picture rails are built into the rooms to allow residents to hang personal photos and pictures.
Q. Concern re the availability of suitable beds at Griffith
A. All new beds have been purchased for Griffith and they will be a mixture of High/Low and Low/Low beds to ensure all residents have the correct beds.
Q. What will happened to the current furniture in Morling Lodge?
A. Furniture will be offered to other BaptistCare facilities and also be sent to third world countries, nothing will be wasted or thrown away if it is in good repair.
Actions
- Web site to be updated with information including the physical location, bed room sizes and furniture placement
- Meetings to be set up with individual family members to assist with the transition to Griffith
- Question and answer pages to be attached to the web site
- Open day and tour dates to be given to family members when the building is completed
The meeting was closed at 12:00hrs
Next Meeting / TBA – approx. 1 month
Signed as a true record of the meeting / Date
Family and friends Meeting 13th April 2014Page 1 of 3