Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre funding cut for Community Visitors program

Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre has been left devastated by a $41,000 funding cut to a program that helps elderly and isolated patients.

Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre chief executive officer Angela Van Dyke. Picture: Justin Sanson

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Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre has been left devastated by a $41,000 funding cut to a program that helps elderly and isolated patients.

The Federal Government axed funding from $48,000 to $7000 to the Community Visitors program just before Christmas.

The funding slash leaves the centre with only five volunteers to reach 30 clients over the next two years.

The centre’s chief executive officer Angela Van Dyke said there was already 10 volunteers who were looking after more than one client.

“I think doing all this just before Christmas is never great,’’ she said.

Angela Van Dyke found out about the funding cuts just before Christmas.

“We need to make sure we’re supporting these volunteers.

“We’re matching people up with similar interests and really it’s keeping people company where they don’t have family around ... either people are living very, very far away or families have fallen apart.”

The $7000 will last until 2021 but Ms Van Dyke said the cuts would have a significant impact on clients and volunteers.

“It also means we don’t have someone to co-ordinate the needs of volunteers,’’ she said.

“We live in a very regulated society and we have a duty of care.

“We still need to have systems around them to support them.”

Ms Van Dyke said that included training for volunteers helping people with dementia, working with clients who had chronic illnesses and those on medication.

She said specific programs such as taking Quakers Hill Nursing Home patients out for a day to the men’s shed was also expensive and the funding cuts made it difficult.

“When I told nursing home staff about the cuts I can’t begin to tell you how devastated they were with that news,’’ Ms Van Dyke said.

“I think people think if you’re in a nursing home you’re not lonely. That’s not true. There are great facilities out there but there are people who are lonely and not participating in the things that make a difference to them.

“There are men who come to our centre and say ‘I don’t want to do art and craft’. They’re blokey blokes.”

Greenway federal Labor MP Michelle Rowland slammed the “cruel cuts”.

“This funding cut is reckless and cruel, particularly given this funding supports the most vulnerable in our community,” Ms Rowland said.

Ms Rowland has made representations to Health Minister Greg Hunt, who oversees the funding. She has not yet heard from Mr Hunt’s office.

The reduced funding allocation starts in mid February.