Post to Facebook on 10/11/2019 11:03 AM
Commenting on “Redefining luxury retirement living on the Gold Coast”
Many retirement “village”s and aged care homes building are multi-storey apartment style accommodation. Due the shortage of land resulting in high prices, it is no longer an option to build single storey homes.
While this is economically a wise decision, I can foresee future fire will lead to many casualties and a number will be fatal, with the aged and frail will be burnt to death.
I volunteer at several aged care homes for over 20 years, including the those with a mixture of independent, low care to high care residents.
One morning, there was a false alarm at one of the sites. Fortunately, it was not a real fire, and it was a single storey building. Many could walk with their walkers very slowly, but some could not walke out of the building unassisted.
Can you imagine if there is a real fire at a multi-storey aged care / retirement village full of aged residents, when lifts are not to be used, and the aged residents must vacate the building?
Unlike most healthy and energetic young people, many residents need assistance to move about, and take much longer to vacate the building, like what I witnessed first hand on site.
I do believe the government should take that into consideration now and review the regulations before casualties occur, and another huge sum spent on a Royal Commission.
It is great if all aged care / homes especially the multi-storey ones have at least one practice run now, and learn from the outcome about how quickly the residents can get to the safe assembly areas.
Money saved now may not save life!
Thank you for reading
Commenting on “Redefining luxury retirement living on the Gold Coast”
Many retirement “village”s and aged care homes building are multi-storey apartment style accommodation. Due the shortage of land resulting in high prices, it is no longer an option to build single storey homes.
While this is economically a wise decision, I can foresee future fire will lead to many casualties and a number will be fatal, with the aged and frail will be burnt to death.
I volunteer at several aged care homes for over 20 years, including the those with a mixture of independent, low care to high care residents.
One morning, there was a false alarm at one of the sites. Fortunately, it was not a real fire, and it was a single storey building. Many could walk with their walkers very slowly, but some could not walke out of the building unassisted.
Can you imagine if there is a real fire at a multi-storey aged care / retirement village full of aged residents, when lifts are not to be used, and the aged residents must vacate the building?
Unlike most healthy and energetic young people, many residents need assistance to move about, and take much longer to vacate the building, like what I witnessed first hand on site.
I do believe the government should take that into consideration now and review the regulations before casualties occur, and another huge sum spent on a Royal Commission.
It is great if all aged care / homes especially the multi-storey ones have at least one practice run now, and learn from the outcome about how quickly the residents can get to the safe assembly areas.
Money saved now may not save life!
Thank you for reading
