Australian Thoughts at the Weekend. 2nd May 2009.

Australian Thoughts at the Weekend. 2nd May 2009.

Aged and Old

This week aged care has been in the news. One item which has caused a lot of comment was that at one nursing home last weekend at least one resident was bitten by a number of mice. The area where the home is situated is right next door to a grain farm. Currently there is a plague of mice and they have been entering the home.

It is a government owned and operated home and they sought permission to put out poison for the mice but the government department responsible for the environment refused permission. We were assured today that traps have been set for the mice at the home and poison baits have been placed in the field from which the grain has been harvested next to the home. Some comments have said there are thousands of mice and the cats have got bored with catching them.

I spent a couple of years working as a Chaplain in various aged care facilities owned by the Uniting Church in Australia. It was a great experience being a part of the team who assisted these senior citizens. I have moved on now to being a Chaplain in a large private hospital. Since the end of World War 2, it has been a war veteran’s hospital but since being bought by a private company, it not only cares for many veterans and widows of veterans but also for many people of senior years from the general community. We do have some younger patients but they are out numbered by people over 60.

Back in October, 2007 I wrote of my then current experiences in working as a holiday relief Chaplain in aged care. I went back to it when I thought of the people in an aged care home who had not only the normal problems to cope with but a mice plague as well. I think it still makes points which are worth repeating.

Aged and Old (6th October, 2007).

It was a small country town and I was early for a meeting. As I waited I chatted with another guest. I was amazed when the lady told me she was 92. In fact, I told her she did not look a day over 91. Now, that is an old joke about age but my new friend had the courtesy to laugh. She had probably heard not only all the old jokes but all the jokes about old age.

This lady I learnt, at 92, was the President of the town’s Senior Citizen’s Club. She organised ‘meals on wheels’ and social mornings and coach outings for the seniors of the town and district. It seemed she had many other involvements as well.

She told me God had blessed her with good health and she said keeping active in mind and body helped her to age well. She said it was amazing that some people in her group she asked for assistance said they were too old. She told me they were more than 20 years younger than she was.

She told me that when some people reached the age to receive the “government age pension” and retire at 65 (in those days 60 for women), they declared themselves old and retired from life. I had some feeling I was listening to a well rehearsed speech but it was probably not without a basis in truth.

Many would know that I am a ‘holiday relief’ Chaplain to people in aged care residential homes. It is a job that I had not given a lot of thought about doing. However, in the fundraising donor relationship work I was doing, I met a lot of people who expressed loneliness and disappointment about being cut off from their church as I visited them in their homes. Some had been very active in church life. One was an organist and choir leader but now she sat bent over with age isolated from fellowship with God’s people but gratefully not from God. I saw a need for a Chaplain to these people. It was at this time I was asked “have you ever thought about being a Chaplain?”

I find personal pleasure in leading people in worship. However, mostly that is only once or twice a week. Currently in a week, I visit 3 aged care residential facilities, a day respite centre and a group of nurses and carers who care for the elderly and sick in their own homes.

A lot of my work is one to one visiting. Most of the people are in their own rooms or sitting in one of the community lounge rooms. Firstly, I introduce myself as the Chaplain while the regular Chaplain is on holidays. If the conversation does not kick off immediately I have a few openers which help.

I sat next to one man and I said “Ralph, tell me your story”. He replied that it was strange I should ask that. He told me in recent weeks he had been thinking that the greatest think his parents had done for him was send him to Sunday School. He said he had enjoyed it then and that his faith and the church had been a great help to him all his life.

He went on to tell of some of the early ministers he knew when he was at Sunday School were people that wings of the aged care home were named after. I told him one of the elders of the church he had attended as a child had just moved into the ‘home’. Later, I introduced the two men. The elder was very pleased to meet an old member of his church from so long ago. The elder also knew a grandson of one of the early ministers Ralph knew was writing a book on his grandfather’s life. An interview was arranged to gather Ralph’s thoughts about a man who affected his life as well as many others.

At another residence, I walked into another resident’s room and immediately I could see what her interest was. On a display cabinet to one side of the room was probably a couple of hundred small china and plastic African animals. They were against a mural of an African landscape. This was surely different. Here, I did not have to ask for a life story. I simply said “you like animals”. She not only told me she had been to Africa many times but mentioned she used to go and stay with George Adamson.

In a voice not at all like Matt Munro, I sang “Born free, as free as the wind blows”. (http://buysoundtrax.stores.yahoo.net/borfreorsoun.html). Immediately, we connected and she began to tell me about George (a game warden) and his animals. I did not pick up on the fact, my friend had not mentioned Joy Adamson, George’s wife, but I soon found this was no oversight. I found my friend had an intense dislike for Joy, the woman who brought the work of George and his animals including the lioness Elsa to the world as the stars of her book and the subsequent movie (1966) “Born Free”.

Some people are not story tellers. At least, they do not tell stories not about themselves. I do not know how many resident’s rooms I have stood in where I am introduced to members of the family. Many times the family members are in far away places but a framed photo on the wall or standing on a cupboard are the key to an expression of pride and love.

I have stood before photos of weddings and parties, of graduations complete with gown and cap, of service men and women in uniform, of family groups and sad last photos of loved ones who have gone from this life. I have looked at pictures of loved pets and houses where the family was raised. Each one of these is full of precious memories of loved ones and days gone by.

People love to show the things they have made. Captured within these lovely craft items are excellent skills now overtaken by a shaky hand or failing eyesight. Many however, are able to use their time by continuing to knit and stitch, to paint or to draw and bring pleasure not only to themselves but to others.

One group of ladies sits everyday knitting garments and scarves which they pack into a carton and send off to a charity which provides guide dogs and mobility aids to blind people. One of them said to me that she could sit there bored but by knitting for others she helps keep herself occupied and her mind active.

Aged care is changing. People are living longer. At one residential facility I currently visit, there are two ladies who are 100 years old and a gentleman will turn 100 early in 2008. One of these ladies rises about 5am every morning, gets dressed and goes for a walk with a friend who is about 90. She does use a walking frame but I think that is mostly insurance against a fall. This 90 year old friend is called “Farmer” by the other residents and has a vegetable garden he tends every day. The garden is full of beautiful vegetable plants. It is not a small garden. It is at least 20 feet (6 metres) by 12 feet (4 metres) and supplies vegetables to the home kitchen and, I noticed, favoured staff members. I asked about how did he water his garden with the heavy water restrictions because of the drought. I should not have asked. He said I get up early while it is still dark and do it before I go for my 5am walk.

Aged care is not only changing because of the age of the residents but there are many other changes. In Australia Southern Territory, the Salvation Army sold most of its aged care facilities to private commercial operators.

I believe similar has been done in New Zealand where not only the Salvation Army but other churches could not sustain the cost of this area of their operations. Australian Eastern territory has launched its most costly expansion ever in building new nursing homes.


The Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland, through its aged care and home nursing arm, Blue Care, for which I work, does not use the term “nursing home”. Each facility has single rooms with attached individual shower room and toilet. This will allow that in most cases, a person coming to a facility will be allocated a room which will accommodate them for their whole stay in the complex.

The result will be that each section or unit will have a mix of low care and high care and even palliative residents. This is termed “aging in place”. The exception will be people, usually with dementia, who for their own safety need to be moved to a secure unit.

The residential age care industry is a highly regulated industry. The Government regulates the number of beds it will fund and the highest standards are demanded to retain the license to operate and receive the government funding. Recently, a Brisbane radio station decided to do an “expose” on the industry and asked listeners to phone in their horror stories of nursing homes.

They had no trouble getting callers but it soon became evident that the calls going to air were ten and more years old. At least, one aged care facility operator who wanted to put the positive side of the story apparently was told that the positive stories were not wanted. Anyone in the industry recognised these old stories happened before accreditation standards and unannounced snap inspections of facilities were introduced by the appropriate Government aged care and health departments.

Government funding in Australia, not only provides for residential aged care but in recent years has provided a whole range of care to people in their own homes. This is not only for “home nursing” as started in the West End Parish, Brisbane by the then Methodist Church more than 50 years ago. What started as the Blue Nursing Service with one nurse catching a tram to take her to house bound clients now carries out more than 2 million visits each year, through out the State of Queensland. The visitors, these days are not only nurses but skilled carers who can provide care in a number of ways. Carers might assist clients with showering and getting dresses. They might help with mediation or cook a meal. They can clean and do a load of washing. They can take clients to an appointment, shopping, or even for a pleasant drive. These are only some of the things I have observed carers doing. So much more than nursing is happening that some years ago the name “Blue Nurses” was changed to “Blue Care”.

As I walked through one residential aged care facility I saw an age worn plaque that recorded the opening of the facility and in lage print had the words “The fruits of faith”. I felt somewhat humbled as I stood before that plaque to be part of a team, part of a church and one worker amongst many of many churches who are putting their faith in Christ into action and producing various fruits in various ways. I reflected on the mission of Blue Care today : “To promote and deliver quality caring services based on the compassion of Christ”.
We do the work of Christ in caring for the old and the sick in our community. The care of widows in the Bible is a theme that occurs in a number of places. I think today we can take “widows” to mean the elderly. In 1 Timothy 5 (New International Version), we read:
3 Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. …
5 The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.
The story is told of an Australian Prime Minister who visited a nursing home. He was shaking hands with many people siting around in a community lounge. One resident reached out her hand to shake his and gave him a large smile. He said to her “do you know who I am?” She quickly answered “No! But if you ask the nurse in the blue uniform she will tell you who you are and how old you are”.

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