Thursday 18 September 2014
VOL 7. No 38
www.bellarinetimes.com.au
Bellarine Times
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BLAST OFF
Ron Nelson stands on Point Lonsdale Pier. The Liberal candidate for Bellarine has attacked Labor’s Bay West port plan and the dredging it will require. Bellarine MP Lisa Neville has defended the plan. See page 5. Photo: REBECCA LAUNER
SALE CLOSE Deal imminent on Ann Nichol House, redundancies likely
BY REBECCA LAUNER
THE sale of Portarlington’s Ann Nichol House is expected to be announced as soon as tomorrow following news all staff will lose their jobs. Lee Atkinson from the Health Workers Union has confirmed he spoke to 32 staff members at the notfor-profit aged care facility last Friday to explain what the Bellarine Community Health (BCH) Board had planned. “I read out an email from the CEO John Fendyk to the staff and went through an impact statement the board had put together,” Mr Atkinson said. “Basically, it said that there would be no transmission of business following the sale and all staff would be made redundant, and then have to reapply for their jobs again.” Bellarine MP Lisa Neville said she expected the BCH Board would formally announce the sale
after a meeting tonight. It is believed the board has yet to choose between a not-for-profit and profit organisation. Mr Atkinson said he initially heard about the sale when Mr Fendyk requested a meeting for last Wednesday. “He spoke about selling Ann Nichol House and I was flabbergasted,” Mr Atkinson said. Mr Atkinson said the staff were, as expected, very upset after hearing of BCH’s plans, particularly because they now remained in limbo. “They don’t want what happened when Coorabin closed, where staff members were waiting for packages which took two months to be fixed. “And the only other public facility is the Grace McKellar Centre in Geelong and are they going to have any jobs going?” Ms Neville said the community had already written to Corangamite federal member Sarah
Henderson, federal Assistant Minister for Social Services Mitch Fifield and state Minister for Health David Davis pleading them to ask BCH not to sell the bed licenses. “The North Bellarine Hostel for the Aged – Ann Nichol House (NBHFA-ANH) Inc interim committee met with Ms Henderson on Tuesday night to express its concerns, but the community has yet to hear a response from Mr Fifield, and Mr Davis refuses to use his power to act on behalf of the community,” Ms Neville said. “BCH has failed to represent or listen to the local community and on Tuesday night in Parliament I sought answers from the Environment Minister, who has responsibility for Crown land, and the Aged Care Minister David Davis on how it is possible that BCH could sell a facility that sits on Crown land. That facility technically belongs to the Crown and taxpayers and only the State has the power to sell it.”
Ann Nichol, the honorary secretary for the entire house project, said the NBHFA-ANH Inc committee did not know whether Ann Nichol House had been sold or not. “However, many rumours abound concerning the future use of the Crown land in Willis Street on which Ann Nichol House is located and the future of the Crown land in Point Lonsdale, on which both the Coorabin building and the Eric Tolliday units are located. “We remain of the view that the community is entitled to retain Ann Nichol House as a public notfor-profit residential facility. “We have a growing number of financial members from across the Bellarine Peninsula who are committed to support the concept that elderly people who need to access residential care should be able to chose between public, not-for-profit facilities or those from the privately owned profit sector.”
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