“No choice”: NSW council to turn aged care home into new care model
Upper Hunter Shire Council in NSW has voted on a new model of care for its Gummun Place Hostel that could be rolled out in other rural areas.
At a meeting on Monday, 30 March, Upper Hunter Shire Council Councillors voted unanimously to accept the offer of a faith-based Not For Profit home care provider to operate the facility in Merriwa as a licensed assisted boarding house with services delivered as home care.
The Council is in the process of finalising the lease agreement – once finalised, the operator will be named. It is expected the transition will occur on 30 April 2026, when Gummun Place will cease operating as a residential aged care facility but will continue to deliver aged care services in the local community.
Only three or four residents remain at the 16-bed facility, and it is hoped they will be able to remain there, Upper Hunter Shire Council Councillor Troy Stolz told The Weekly SOURCE. Some are in their mid-90s.
“It’s not exactly what we wanted,” Troy said. “I think we could sustain [residential aged care] with the older people in Merriwa in high care, but the government doesn’t want to give us the additional funding to run it as high care.
“So we’ve got no choice – we were losing $1 million a year.”
The Council applied unsuccessfully for three grants through the Federal Government’s Aged Care Capital Assistance Program.
Alternate model for rural areas
Six to eight home care operators applied to operate the facility through an Expression of Interest process, suggesting there is interest in the boarding house/home care model or other similar structures.
“I’m hopeful that this model may also be rolled out again in rural areas where they face a similar problem,” Troy said.
The Gummun Place Advisory Committee was advised by aged care consultants Pride Aged Living.
Troy would also like to see the site used as a health hub, with services such as allied health and cardiology offered on site.
Years of effort
In 2024, the Upper Hunter Shire Council wrote to the Federal Government warning Gummun Place Hostel was losing $400,000 a year.
The following year, the Council contacted 160 aged care providers seeking interest in taking on the facility. Only one operator responded, but later withdrew their interest after a site inspection.
