Minister Visits Newly-Opened $20 Million Facility – More Aged Care Beds for WA
The Minister for Ageing officially toured the $20 million SwanCare Bentley Kingia/Tandara aged care facility in Perth on 22 April.
View by date:
Previous MinistersPDF printable version of Minister Visits Newly-Opened $20 Million Facility – More Aged Care Beds for WA (PDF 22 KB)
22 April 2009
The Minister for Ageing, Mrs Justine Elliot today officially toured the $20 million SwanCare Bentley Kingia/Tandara aged care facility in Perth.
Mrs Elliot was joined by Senator Mark Bishop at the site – which includes Kingia/Tandara (formerly the Tandara/Ningana Nursing Home) and the Waminda Hostel.
Mrs Elliot made the visit while in Perth for the Rudd Government’s Community Cabinet.
More than 150 people are employed at the Kingia/Tandarra site and more then nine additional jobs were created with the opening of the new beds, bringing the total workforce to almost 160.
Kingia is the first of stage of construction of a renewed 5,760 square metre facility – which had up to 70 workers on building site – at any one time.
The facility has 146 high-care beds and 134 low-care beds – totalling 280 aged care places.
Mrs Elliot said: “I congratulate the staff and volunteers for their ongoing hard work in the development and completion of this stage of such an important project.”
“I also officially welcome all of the residents to their new home,” Mrs Elliot said.
The Rudd Government is planning for the future and expanding existing services in both residential and community care.
“Parts of WA have one of the world’s longest life expectancies, and the Rudd Government is tackling the challenges of our ageing population.
”We are working with the industry and providers like SwanCare to respond to the challenges of Australia’s ageing population,” Mrs Elliot said.
This year alone, West Australian residential aged care providers will receive about $537 million and more than $2.4 billion is being invested in Western Australia over the next four years.
Senator Bishop said: “The increased capacity to provide these services will be a tremendous boost to the region.
“The ongoing work at this site will continue to benefit the local community by providing quality aged care in Perth” Senator Bishop said.
The SwanCare Group (formerly Swan Village of Care) has been a provider of accommodation for older Western Australians since 1960.
Ageing in Western Australia
Overall, as a jurisdiction, Western Australia has a life expectancy for both men and women of 79.2 and 84 years, respectively.
Western Australia has 173,317 people over the age of 70, comprising 8.2 per cent of its population and that is expected to increase to 292,109 by 2020, comprising 10.8 per cent of the population.*
Population Projections for Western Australia population 70+
Year | 2007 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 |
Population 70+ | 173,317 | 191,616 | 230,954 | 292,109 |
Per cent of population | 8.2 per cent | 8.5 per cent | 9.3 per cent | 10.8 per cent |
*Based on 2006 census
Residential aged care funding in Western Australia
Over the next four years, the Australian Government will provide record funding and support of over $2.4 billion to Western Australia’s 251 approved residential aged care homes operating 14,252 places.
And in 2008-2009 alone, Western Australian aged care providers will receive record funding of $537 million for residential care – an increase of 8.5 per cent over the previous financial year.
For more information, contact Mrs Elliot's office on (02) 6277 7280
Help with accessing large documents
When accessing large documents (over 500 KB in size), it is recommended that the following procedure be used:
- Click the link with the RIGHT mouse button
- Choose "Save Target As.../Save Link As..." depending on your browser
- Select an appropriate folder on a local drive to place the downloaded file
Attempting to open large documents within the browser window (by left-clicking)
may inhibit your ability to continue browsing while the document is
opening and/or lead to system problems.
Help with accessing PDF documents
To view PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, you will need to have a PDF reader installed on your computer. A number of PDF readers are available through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) Web Guide website.