WHEN Catherine Davies’ husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1988, there were few services available in the Southern Highlands for dementia sufferers and their carers.
“It was a scary, lonely existence, with little or no support,” Ms Davies, now secretary of the Wingecarribee Community Services Centre (WCSC) committee, told listeners at the opening of the Queen Street Centre yesterday.
“The Queen Street Centre will go a long way to addressing these feelings.”
The $1.8 million Queen Street Centre will house adult day care, as well as support services such as Alzheimer’s Australia NSW (Dementia Advisory Service), the Benevolent Society, Care Assist, the Schizophrenia Fellowship, Ability Options and Wingecarribee Food Services (Meals on Wheels).
A dementia support group is expected to commence in the centre in 2009.
Ms Davis said as well as giving respite to those caring for frail, aged and disabled people, the Queen Street Centre would be a place where carers could meet, talk and seek comfort from other carers, ie, those who could best understand their problems.
She thanked the many people who had given their “skill, time, funding, blood, sweat and tears to make the dream a reality” since the project was initiated by Moss Vale Rotary six years ago.
“From the beginning, this has been seen as a shire-wide facility,” she said.
“The community’s involvement and financial generosity has made it so and we will respond by providing the best and most appropriate care, service and concern to all those who we have the privilege of caring for.”
For the full story see the Southern Highland News, Friday, October 31
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