Two Resident Association Presidents say the game is over for Village Operators

Judy Mayfield and Roger Pallant are not trying to make a political point. They are describing a business model failure whose day has come. Operators can’t dismiss this risk any longer.

They are talking about who cares for village residents that need care support 24/7. Where is the village operator?

“We are the first responders. We drive residents to hospital. We don’t mind, but no one else will,” Roger, the President of the NSW Retirement Village Residents Association, said on Saturday.

Read that again. Residents. Acting as first responders. Is this a good story?

It is not just talk. Roger and his fellow village residents have decided to employ a social welfare/wellness officer because, as he says, there are people in his village who need help that the residents cannot provide and the operator is missing. The residents will pay for the officer’s wage themselves as they see it is of paramount importance. We are talking about real people being forced into a position to look after the operator’s residents.

“We have people who should not be here anymore, and their kids tell us there is no aged care home able to take them. They apologise but those people need to go into care or need to be cared for in the village,” Roger said.

This is not an isolated village problem. It is the foreseeable collision of an aged care system under strain and a retirement living model that still assumes resident independence is the default state until the very end.

When Roger says residents have asked the operator for help and “nothing is forthcoming,” what he is really describing is a structural gap. Residents are filling it because someone must.

Why should they carry this burden?

Let’s face it. You don’t need to be Einstein to realise if aged care homes are full, where do village residents go?  Yes, some are marooned in hospital in a 100% unsatisfactory situation, but most are in retirement villages, lonely, deteriorating, feeling invisible and unwanted.

Sure, ‘independent living’ is the business model. And yet, in 2026, is it still considered acceptable to staff a village of 100 or more residents who join at close to age 80 with a village manager, a part time administrator, a handyman who does the gardening, on site until 5pm Monday to Friday?

That model belongs to another era.

To be fair, parts of the sector are beginning to move.

New Wellness roles coming online

Large operators such as Keyton and Levande now speak openly about wellness teams and broader resident support frameworks. Importantly, this is not being positioned as care delivery, but as sensible resident support and proactive risk management. But is that 24/7 or just 9 to 5 on weekdays?

Smaller operators are also responding. Aura Holdings has appointed its first Wellbeing Manager, a Registered Nurse. That decision is telling. It reflects an acceptance that villages can no longer rely on goodwill, informal checks and overstretched managers to manage complex human risk.

This is where the duty of care debate can no longer be avoided. Events happen 24/7, not just in office hours.

When residents organise welfare roles, transport neighbours to hospital and manage crisis situations, the line between “community” and “care responsibility” has already been crossed. The sector may resist the language, but the lived reality is unmistakable.

What Roger is describing is not mission creep. It is unmanaged risk. Judy Mayfield, President of the Association of Residents of QLD Retirement Villages (ARQRV) has been telling us the same thing for years.

When residents become first responders, the system has already failed.

The question for operators is no longer whether wellbeing roles are “within scope.” The real question is whether continuing without them is defensible.

“That woman at Aura will become the first responder. That’s what every village operator should have. It would show they (the operator) care,” said Roger. But not 24/7.

If two resident associations are talking like this, when will the regulators start taking note? Soon, we predict.

The independent game may now be over.