RSL LifeCare expects to quickly fill a more than $12 million nursing home that will be built beside Horizons Village in west Dubbo and generate 78 jobs.
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The 100-year-old and not-for-profit organisation, which bought the established retirement village four months ago, is also planning a staged increase of its villas from 120 to 200.
Its acting deputy chief executive officer (CEO) Illana Halliday and colleagues came to Dubbo from Sydney for the ceremonial turning of the first sod on the nursing home by federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton.
On Tuesday morning Ms Halliday said Dubbo was a “large and vibrant” city that attracted retirees from outlying communities. “The demand for aged-care places is higher than what the supply is in Dubbo,” she said. “We did our homework beforehand.”
The nursing home, which will have a 130-metre frontage in Landsdowne Drive, opposite Macquarie Anglican Grammar School, will be called Bill Newton VC Gardens after the “only RAAF member to be awarded the Victoria Cross in the Pacific Theatre of World War II”.
It will include 42 bedrooms for residents without dementia and a “dementia-specific wing” with 18 bedrooms. Ms Halliday said all residents would have their own bedrooms and bathrooms in the facility set to open in about 18 months.
She said Patterson Building Group, working on multiple projects in Dubbo since 2009 and using “local tradesmen”, would build the new facility on 10,000 square metres of land, already being levelled by heavy machinery.
The sod turning was followed by a Horizons Village event where RSL LifeCare announced the introduction of its LifeCare at Home service that will help vilage residents maintain their lifestyle through in-home help. “Our model is to provide all three things on the one site—independent living, LifeCare and nursing home,” Ms Halliday said.
The acting deputy CEO said residents elsewhere in the city would be able to access LifeCare at Home and people in Dubbo and the region could utilise the nursing home. “Everyone’s welcome but we do give preference to veterans,” she said.
Mr Coulton applauded “big business investing in Dubbo” and the RSL LifeCare model that kept loved ones together. RSL LifeCare looks after more than 7000 people in “residential care, community care and retirement living” across NSW. It employs about 3000 staff in fields such as nursing, administration, catering, gardening and maintenance.