In October last year, the taxpayer-funded ABC's 7.30 tried to destroy the retirement living sector with an 18-minute broadcast with journalist Adele Ferguson "exposing the great retirement village financial trap" entitled "Retirement Rip-Off".
It led the Retirement Village Residents Association to band together for the first time and survey its residents on issues the ABC claimed were abhorrent.
“We are tired of the media painting all residents in retirement villages as incapable of making their own decisions, implying they didn’t understand what they were signing, and suggesting they are being exploited,” said Judy Mayfield, President of the Association of Residents of Queensland Retirement Villages (ARQRV).
The early results of the survey of over 4,000 village residents across the country indicated the majority understood the terms and conditions of the contract they had signed and were satisfied or very satisfied with life in their village.
Residents are a retirement village operator's greatest asset and they, and their families do praise them in emails, letters and words. Whoever sees or reads them? Operators seem oblivious to their value.
Gloria Heward, a resident at Alino Living's Adelene Independent Living Village in Wyoming, 4km north of Gosford CBD, in the NSW Central Coast, wrote a letter to Community Coast News capturing what retirement living is all about.
Its contents speak highly of Alino Living, life at Adeline Independent Living Village, and the staff at the village of 16 one-bedroom apartments and 89 two-bedroom villas.
DCM Group, which owns and operates websites The Weekly SOURCE, AgedCare101 and Villages.com.au encourages retirement village operators to send us any positive correspondence between residents and their families with management that is able to be shared. Please contact us via email at: editor@theweeklysource.com.au.
