A new respite service for people living along the Mid North Coast from Tea Gardens to Port Macquarie has been introduced by the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care (DADHC).
The home, in Sherwood Drive, Port Macquarie, will provide facility based respite services for up to six clients at a time. This will enable family members to take a break from their carer role.
DADHC’s Northern Region Director, Chris Leach, said that the home, which was specially designed to cater for people with disabilities, was built at a cost of more than $1.1 million.
He said the new respite service was part of the NSW Government’s $1.3 billion commitment under its Stronger Together initiative to increase disability services.
The home replaces a 40 year old building in Walters Street known throughout the region as “Seabreezes Respite”. Seabreezes Respite originally opened in 1993 and included an outreach service to support families on holiday in Port Macquarie. It also ran holiday respite in different locations across the region.
Mr Leach said that the government had been committed to improving respite services in the region and this new home would go a long way to meeting local demand for respite beds.
“I know these families have been eagerly awaiting the opening of this new service and the government is proud to have been able to provide it.”
He said that the new Port Macquarie service would make respite opportunities much more accessible for people, especially those living in the southern parts of the region such as the Manning Valley and Great Lakes areas.
Mr Leach said that the new home was built on environmentally sensitive principles including solar orientation to reduce the need for artificial heating and cooling and would use stored rainwater for watering the native gardens.