A "CRITICAL" expansion of a residential aged care facility to combat its "substantial" waiting list is in the works for one small town council. Uralla Shire Council has commissioned concept plans to expand McMaugh Gardens. The residential aged care service is highly valued with a waiting list, according to council documents. The amount of people hoping to move into the facility is "substantial", mayor Robert Bell said. Despite federal aged care minister Anika Wills suggesting the desire to stay at home is trending upward among the elderly, Cr Bell said many are still looking for good aged care accommodation. READ ALSO: McMaugh Gardens has 35 permanent rooms and one respite room, and council's ambition is to increase that to 50 total rooms, Mr Bell said. It's more financially sustainable to increase numbers, he said, since the legal requirement to ensure at least one registered nurse is on duty 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week came into effect earlier this month. Council has commissioned a consultant's report for the early stages of the project, and the next step will be to seek federal government grants to proceed. It's no surprise to see that most community-based aged care accommodation services are running at a loss, Mr Bell said. "We're looking to break even, but at the end of the day, it's about what sort of support we can give to our elderly residents, not about how much money we might or might not make out of it," he said. Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
