Caring for our Elderly in Australia with Lucy O'Flaherty

10/20/22 • 31 min

Lucy O'Flaherty, CEO Columbia Aged Care
Welcome to The Room Xchange Podcast. I’m Ludwina Dautovic and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Luck O’Flaherty, CEO of Columbia Aged Care. Lucy and I are going to unpack the process of caring for our elderly in Australia.

In this episode we discuss:

Caring for our elderly in Australia and the choices you have
Dementia and loneliness are two main issues we need to be aware of with our elderly
My Aged Care is a great resource to find out the right information for your elderly care
Be clear about your goals for your care, what you need and when you'll need it
Have an advanced care directive in place which can be set up online
Make sure your family clearly understands your needs and desires when aging
Get your financial plans in order
Have a power of attorney
Make the right preparations so when the time comes your family doesn't have to be concerned about what you want

"We need to find the right ways when caring for our elderly parents in Australia"
Options for living arrangements when caring for your elderly in Australia
In the early stages when you're just needing some company at home and a little bit of help around the place, The Room Xchange is an ideal option. Most unused spare bedrooms are in the homes of elderly people. The spare bedrooms is an untapped resource for both the family of the elderly person and those who are looking for affordable and accessible housing. When it’s only company and some light housekeeping that’s needed, having someone to share your home could be the ideal answer you need. We also have a Matching Service and House Share Agreement process that we can take you through should you need a more personalised approach.

Retirement Villages or Assisted Living are a good next step. These are places where you can still live fairly independently but have the onsite care and help should you need it.

Aged Care Facilities are for when you are closer to the end of your life and require medical care and ongoing support.

"You need to be clear about your goals and decide them early"

Contact The Room Xchange

Tweet us at @theroomxchange and @LudwinaDautovic
Share a story on instagram @theroomxchange
Email us at [email protected]

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In this episode we discuss:

Caring for our elderly in Australia and the choices you have
Dementia and loneliness are two main issues we need to be aware of with our elderly
My Aged Care is a great resource to find out the right information for your elderly care
Be clear about your goals for your care, what you need and when you'll need it
Have an advanced care directive in place which can be set up online
Make sure your family clearly understands your needs and desires when aging
Get your financial plans in order
Have a power of attorney
Make the right preparations so when the time comes your family doesn't have to be concerned about what you want

Retirement Villages or Assisted Living are a good next step. These are places where you can still live fairly independently but have the onsite care and help should you need it.

Aged Care Facilities are for when you are closer to the end of your life and require medical care and ongoing support.

"You need to be clear about your goals and decide them early"

Contact The Room Xchange

Tweet us at @theroomxchange and @LudwinaDautovic
Share a story on instagram @theroomxchange
Email us at [email protected]

Previous Episode

How to make your rental feel like your home with Bunnings Online Workshop Team

In episode 16, Ludwina Dautovic interviews Mitchell McLean. Mitch is passionate about all things DIY, having spent the past 19 years with Bunnings supporting customers with bringing their projects to life. Mitch is currently part of the Bunnings workshop team, an online community for sharing DIY advice and inspiration.
About Mitchell McLean

Mitchell McLean has been renting for 20 years and has had quite a rental journey. It’s provided him with variety and flexibility. Bunnings workshops is all about assisting customers with DIY projects online. Renters are coming in daily to improve their property. They have just hit 30k members and a high percentage of them are renters.

"Whether you're a tenant or owner, turning your house into a home is imperative. Creating positive surroundings with your personal style should be seen foremost as an investment into your own well-being."

How you can make your rental feel like your home with out losing your bond

Touch base with your landlord and have a chat. They're usually happy to negotiate changes in the home.
The kinds of things you can change are basically anything that doesn’t damage your property and it’s easily removable. Make sure that you put the property back in the same state that you found it.
You can hang pictures and curtains. Just be mindful how you hang them. You can now get hanging strips from Bunnings which will hold up to 4kg which will save you putting a hole in the wall.

Bathroom vanity story

Mitch and his partner were living in a rental that had a very old bathroom vanity. They replaced it and it improved the quality of their home and their experience living in it. The landlord was also very happy as it improved the value of his house.

“ We need to look at it like we’re investing in our happiness, not in someone else’s property.”

Garden ideas for your rental property

Container planting
Free standing gardens
Don’t invest in things that you can’t take with you.
Outdoor wall art from succulents
Hang cheap art outside and seal it with a waterproofer - silicone spray

Improvements you can do inside your rental hom

Contact The Room Xchange

Tweet us at @theroomxchange and @LudwinaDautovic
Share a story on instagram @theroomxchange
Email us at [email protected]

Next Episode

Community Land Trusts - A Grounded Approach to Housing with Karl Fitzgerald

About Karl Fitzgerald - Economist and Director of Grounded
Welcome to The Room Xchange Podcast. I’m Ludwina Dautovic and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Karl Fitzgerald about Community Land Trusts.
Karl Fitzgerald is an economist specialising in land economics and works as the Director of Grounded - the Community Land Trust advocacy body. He led Prosper Australia's research for 18 years. He is also Treasurer of the Malmsbury Village Fayre, a volunteer with the local farmers market and loves making rhubarb amaro.

A message from our host - Ludwina Dautovic
This conversation took me by surprise. I first met Karl Fitzgerald at a recent Prosper event. I'd never heard of Prosper before or the idea that land could be leased to build upon. Call me naive, but with the entire conversation in the media being about home ownership in Australia, it's a little hard to imagine there is another way.
Karl and I go in depth about the process of Community Land Trusts. I used my lack of knowledge on the subject as a presupposition that the listeners might not have too much knowledge on it either.
I hope you enjoy this episode. I welcome your thoughts and opinions on our social media. All links are below.
"Society is so busy playing the monopoly board game that they can't see how they are being played by monopolists IRL" - Karl Fitzgerald

In this episode we discuss:

Rhubarb Amaro
How his brother's cot death led to the founding of the Sudden Infant Death Research Foundation which today is known as Red Nose Australia.
He discovered Georgism and got involved with Prosper Australia and helped build the company back up.
Prosper Australia has been around since 1890 and was born out of an American economist called Henry George.
How Grounded is setting up Community Land Trusts to enable people to have access to affordable housing
Karl Fitzgerald produced a documentary called 'Real Estate 4 Ransom'
A CLT means that you only pay for the building of the house, not the land it's on so it massively reduces the cost of housing
Why are we experiencing a rental crisis?
When did affordable housing become a privilege and not a right?
We should be giving tax incentives to nurses and childcare workers as opposed to land developers
13.5m unused spare bedrooms in 10m homes across Australia - existing housing stock
We need to shift the conversation around how we can fix housing
There are also 1.1m vacant homes around Australia. To replace that stock would cost $650m
Charge higher rates for vacant homes - vacancy tax
Vacant land banks that are being held by investors
in 2022 Australian land prices increased by $994 billion!
Corporate renters will be the new housing trend