Not For Profit community organisation Cowra Retirement Village’s plan to reopen St Lawrence Residential Aged Care facility in Harden, a township on the Northwest Slopes of NSW, 280km southwest of Sydney, has failed.
Southern Cross Care NSW & ACT shut St Lawrence in February after its occupancy dropped to 77%, with its 35 residents moved to other facilities.
Three months later, Cowra Retirement Village announced it would recommission the 10-year-old site and successfully applied for 45 bed licences.
However, its plan relied on being successful for a $4 million federal grant as part of the Aged Care Approvals Round (ACAR) to purchase the facility.
Cowra Retirement Village CEO Scott Kable (pictured) said the contract to buy the site had been withdrawn because it had not secured the grant.
“We were very confident we would get the funding, we were very surprised when we didn’t,” he said.
The nearby Murrumburrah-Harden District Hospital has been allocated four additional residential care places.
