From the Chief Executive Officer

A WORD FROM THE

Chief Executive Officer

Ihave written previously in Life & Love that Remembrance Day is a day that I treasure, especially as it is my Mother Poppy’s birthday. This year I will treasure it more than ever before as I have recently lost my darling Mum. I will continue to honour Remembrance Day for the rest of my life as I believe we can all learn from our veterans; in the modern age they still have much to teach us about sacrifice, selflessness and resilience.

And as we continue to navigate turbulent seas on a global level with the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems fitting that for this issue we spoke to one of the last remaining World War II veterans in our homes; 96 year-old Naval Officer Raymond Bartholomew, who lives with us at Rockingham.

Raymond’s bravery, humbleness and can-do attitude played a huge part in him surviving WWII where he was put in all manner of dangerous situations as an A-Gunner on warships throughout Italy and Malta before eventually being captured by German soldiers. There is an old adage; ‘fortune favours the brave’ and if our veteran’s stories are anything to go by, I believe that saying to be very true indeed. You can read Raymond’s story and learn about two of our other proud veterans who live with us in WA and NSW from page 16. Speaking of brave, in this issue we also say thank you to our four staff members who were deployed to Victoria as part of the National Aged Care Emergency Response (NACER) team. These selfless souls left their loved-ones for a month to help the aged care sector in Victoria; you can read all about their journey on page 8. I would like to express my gratitude and admiration for the bravery of this wonderful team of people who headed into a COVID-19 hotspot to help the most vulnerable in our society with their colleagues from Italian Aged Care by their side. Their actions were highly commendable and speaking to them on Zoom calls, I learned firsthand how truly frightening the situation in Victoria was, how essential ongoing PPE training is and how vitally important it is that we all work together to share knowledge and learnings about this pandemic.

Hall & Prior’s motto Compassionate People, Dedicated to Care, has never been more important than during COVID-19. Lest we forget.

Yours truly,

GRAEME PRIOR Chief Executive Officer