"Recent transition into residential aged care"

We urgently had to move my elderly mother into residential care due to mobility/pain issues and two falls. We had already been looking for a suitable permanent residential place but had to hasten our search. We selected Parkview as one of three shortlisted venues and chose it because of the high quality of the facility including the suitability of the room, the strong holistic ethos evident in the care arrangements and program design, and the financial structure that was offered in terms of price and payment arrangements.

We soon learned that the transition process was more than the few weeks it took to physically move Mum in and get her settled. Because of her unique care needs it has taken us all several months - the Parkview staff working closely with Mum and her doctor and us, her family - to get the care configured optimally for Mum's needs and to ensure she is settled physically, socially and culturally into the community. She entered Parkview telling us that she had a feeling of "coming home" and now firmly considers Parkview to be her home.

Throughout this period the Parkview staff have shown a real willingness to communicate with family and listen to us. They communicate well with Mum who, while physically disabled, is cognitively very able and self aware. Most importantly in lots of little ways they demonstrate their strong belief that Mum and her neighbours should be respected as residents in their home rather than patients in a facility.

Currently there is a lot of exposure, quite rightly, of cases where the standard of care for people in some aged care facilities is unacceptable. There are a lot of challenges faced by professionals working in this sector. Fortunately for us, we seem to have found a place for Mum that represents the other end of the quality spectrum and it's hard to describe how much of a relief that has been for us all.