Aged care the focus for Boddington Shire as committee continues work

The Shire of Boddington is examining the establishment of an aged care facility to help senior members of the community stay in their home town.

Shire acting chief executive Graham Stanley said while independent living units were opened in 2019, options remained limited for residents requiring more support.

“We’ve had a number of lifelong residents of the shire actually move to Mandurah, to Perth,” he said. “It takes them away from their community, their kids and their grandkids — and we’ve had interest in people wanting to move back to Boddington.”

To understand whether the project is feasible, the Shire has set up an aged care committee chaired by Dr Coert Erasmus, with other councillors, staff and community members.

Mr Stanley said after consultation with other local governments and the WA Health Department, the committee was considering a range of aged care models.

“We’ve been told to be financially viable using a traditional model to attract an operator, you need to probably be looking at 100 beds,” Mr Stanley said.

“One-hundred beds is a very large facility so we’re looking at alternative models that might be viable at a much smaller scale. We’ve just sent out expressions of interest to a number of consulting firms that specialise in this area to examine alternative models for providing high care and accommodation.”