OUR STORY
The mission of Anam Cara House is to provide the Geelong community with a residential respite facility to assist families who are caring at home for a loved one with a life threatening illness. Specialised respite care is to be provided within a home-like environment, embracing respect and compassion for all people. The purpose of Anam Cara House is to provide a choice of support for persons and their carers through the provision of appropriate 24-hour residential respite care. This care will be provided by registered nurses, allied health professionals, trained volunteers and on-call personel. Anam Cara House will offer holistic individual and family care, embracing physical, emotional and spiritual care which will be provided in conjunction with the provision of information, education, volunteer support and complementary therapies plus, if required, bereavement care to families.
The proposal is to provide short-term respite care, overnight and day stay for persons of all ages currently being cared for at home. This would give the carers a break, thus supporting their ability to continue to provide home care for their loved one. Their respite may be for a few days only, depending on what is required to both assist the home patient, and at the same time support the family carers. This facility will also provide a choice for care in the last few days of life, if home care is no longer appropriate or possible and if acute hospital care is unwarranted.
Support in principle has been received from the major providers in Geelong and St. John of God Health Care have committed to cover the cost of meals at Anam Cara House. Deakin University have also indicated a wish to partner the project with a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the placement of social workers, occupational therapists and nursing trainees. There has been a major Capital Fundraising Appeal realising some 1.1 million dollars, indicating outstanding support from the corporate and private sector of the Community. There has also been great support from service clubs, community groups, schools and various faith communities.
Background and history
The project began in 2002 with the establishment of a working group to establish a community residential respite facility. In 2003 the group was incorporated as The Community Hospice Project Inc. with the vision to establish a unique community respite facility. The term ‘hospice’ means ‘a resting place’ and we envisage this facility will provide quality residential respite care in a home-like environment. Anam Cara House is the name for the hospice – ‘anam cara’ is the Gaelic term for ’soul friends’.
The project is a first for Geelong. It is the only specialised residential respite facility in the region to integrate residential respite in a home like environment, holistic care, information, education, volunteer support and complementary therapies. All of this will is line with the current Palliative Care Australia standards and recommendations. Its focus is to offer choice – alongside admittance to hospital for respite or medical-based palliative care. The project responds to the growing service gap in residential respite care in Geelong – especially in the provision of short-term respite care.
Anam Cara House therefore reflects the need within the wider Geelong community for appropriate respite accommodation, within the community, for persons with a life-threatening illness, currently being cared for at home. The focus on ‘whole of community’ is also highlighted by the pioneering approach that Anam Cara House is taking in the area of providing support and care for patient, carer and family.
In February 2006, St Mary’s Catholic Parish, situated in central Geelong offered the current Presbytery building (now under-used) as the location for Anam Cara House. Surrounded by spacious gardens, and just two minutes walk from each of Geelong’s three hospitals, the building is ideal for the needs of the hospice, and will be available for a minimum of ten years at a ‘peppercorn’ lease. The Presbytery building can accommodate up to six hospice residents on the ground floor, together with spacious dining/community room, kitchen, laundry, family unit and quiet areas. In addition, the upper storey has six rooms which is used for people who have need of low-cost accommodation so they can be proximate to patients in the hospitals, or alternatively who wish to be close to residents at Anam Cara House who may be at the ‘end of life’ stage. Anam Cara House is community-based, and not Church-base, nonetheless, the Parish of St. Mary’s is so strongly supportive of the proposal for a community hospice, that it offers every support necessary to enable Anam Cara House to operate.
Anam Cara House is a classic example of community partnering; a project generated from within the community, reflecting the community priorities of the wider Geelong region and backed by an impressive list of core and supporting partners including business leaders, healthcare professionals, and private organizations.