Chooks brighten up life in high care nursing home
Having grown up on a farm, Governor Phillip Manor resident Nance Barnabee enjoys the companionship of the facility’s new chicks. Picture: Peter Kelly
YOU’RE never too old to get excited by chicks — baby chickens, that is.
That’s what staff at the former Governor Phillip Hospital are finding after introducing the hatchling program Henny Program at the high care nursing home in Penrith.
It forms part of a $15 million upgrade hatched by the new owners, to revitalise the tired old facility.
“When RSL LifeCare took over, the facility it was of yesteryear standards ... large ward type accommodation with communal toilets and bathrooms,” RSL LifeCare’s Central Sydney general manager Luke Young said with reference to the hospital at 64 Glebe Place, Penrith, which they acquired through a tender process from NSW Health in June 2011.
Resident Nance Barnabee, 93, with admin assistant Kathy Ryan.
Kathy Ryan in a typical room.
Governor Phillip Manor, as it is now known, still has 80 high care nursing beds but they are now in single and double rooms.
A 22-bed dementia wing has replaced the rehabilitation centre, there are two dining rooms shared by the residents, there’s a hairdressing salon, small songbirds in walk in aviaries and real life fish swimming in giant aquariums.