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A new purpose-built Blue Care Community and Respite Care building where 29 nursing, personal care and support staff will assist 220 clients from Murgon and surrounding areas, is now open.

Construction on the new building began at the end of May 2011 and was partly funded by Home and Community Care (HACC), along with other contributions from the fund raising efforts of the Blue Care Auxiliary and Committee, the Murgon Thrift Shop and local community groups including Lions, Rotary, Apex, Quota, CWA, RSL and garden clubs.

"The new building is specifically designed to meet the needs of clients and staff, with private rooms for client consultations and more space for centre-based activities and staff training,” Robyn Batten, Executive Director of Blue Care said.

"It was a convenient move from next door and a big thank you goes to the Uniting Church for allowing us to use their hall space to run our operations for the past nine years," she said.

The new building will assist Blue Care clients from the Murgon area to live independently and maintain their quality of life. Blue Care South West/South Burnett Community Care Manager Vicki Plummer said the project had received strong community support, including donations from local business.

"We are grateful for the overwhelming community and business support for this project," Vicki said.

"Clients now have space for special interests, including craft activities and in the future the men’s group will have their own veggie patch and a shed.

"Our respite programs now have the facilities to run cooking programs to teach clients how to cook basic meals for one or two, and we have been able to increase the number of Blue Care support groups to include palliative and carers groups," she said.

An official opening ceremony was held on November 15 2011 when UnitingCare Queensland CEO Anne Cross presented the service with an official plaque in the presence of dignitaries and guests.

Blue Care Murgon Community and Respite Care services include nursing, domestic assistance, in-home and centre-based respite, social support, personal care, allied health, palliative care, case management, Community Aged Care packages and Extended Aged Care at Home packages.

Blue Care is part of the UnitingCare Queensland group which provides quality and compassionate care to more than 14 000 people every day of the year and also includes UnitingCare Community, UnitingCare Health and UnitingCare Social Justice.  

For more information go to the Blue Care careers website.

From 15 August 2011, Lifeline Community Care Queensland will be known as UnitingCare Community.

The change of name will more accurately reflect who the organisation is - part of UnitingCare Queensland and the Uniting Church.

There will be no change to services and the Lifeline brand will not be lost. Traditional Lifeline services such as telephone counselling, suicide prevention and Lifeline shops will continue under the Lifeline name and as part of the national Lifeline network, but will be operated by UnitingCare Community.

Other services such as child protection, disability services, refugee support programs,  programs for older people, women’s refuges and many more, are moving to the UnitingCare Community brand.

This means that the agency formerly known as Lifeline Community Care Queensland will now be known as UnitingCare Community.

Every year, many thousands of older people in Queensland are subject to abuse - in fact it is estimated that during 2011 a staggering 30 000 Queenslanders aged over 65 will be abused.  To shed more light on the nature of this abuse and to assess its true prevalence, Lifeline Community Care Queensland’s Elder Abuse Prevention Unit (EAPU) is working with research partners in an innovative research study. 

The intent of this pilot project is to demonstrate the necessity for a broader nationwide study which for the first time would clarify the nature of elder abuse and give a true indication on its prevalence across Australia.  

Blue Care Indigenous Co-ordinator in Far North Queensland, Donna Corrie, has been appointed as an Ambassador with the Australian Government’s Indigenous Education Ambassadors program.   

Donna, a Torres Strait Islander from Far North Queensland, who is based in Cairns, says that she was overwhelmed when she received the letter from the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, the Hon Peter Garrett MP, confirming her appointment. 

The University of Queensland/Blue Care Research and Practice Development Centre has led a team of Australian researchers in the development of a palliative care toolkit which aims to improve the quality of care for people approaching the end of their life in a residential aged care facility. 

The Palliative Approach Toolkit, which will improve resources for residential aged care facilities nationally and throughout the world, is the culmination of a two-year project led by Associate Professor Deborah Parker from the University of Queensland/Blue Care Research and Practice Development Centre.  The Centre is a joint venture of the School of Nursing at the University of Queensland, and Blue Care which is part of the network of UnitingCare Queensland agencies and services that provide quality and compassionate care to more than 14 000 people every day of the year.