The NSW, VIC and WA Governments are calling out for volunteers to support lonely and isolated older citizens.
NSW Minister for Families, Communities and Disability Services, Gareth Ward, nails the challenge: “The pandemic is placing a significant strain on volunteer-driven organisations who support vulnerable members of our community, and many require more people to help meet demand”.
The challenge is that COVID-19 has broken down many support systems and normal daily routines.
Strangely the first sign was the hoarding of toilet paper. The people most affected were less able people, young and old, who struggle to carry more than a small pack home and had a pattern of visiting the supermarket several times a week.
But if there were no supplies – for weeks – and then only large packs, they were in trouble.
Multiply this across the staples of rice, pasta, and noodles and you get the picture of people doing without, alone and at home.
Governments are now addressing the mental fallout from the pandemic, with anxiety over the realisation by single people that they are often genuinely on their own, which is beyond the concept of loneliness – it goes to feelings of vulnerability.
One answer for Governments is to engage volunteers to ‘buddy up’ with people who are on their own.
This is not easy for them to do. Setting up a formal process to vet the volunteers as suitable and reliable, and then covering insurance, rosters and reliefs when they want to go on holidays.
This is done by the state Centres for Volunteering, but they are struggling to get numbers.
One answer is retirement villages. Operators are reporting to us a creeping increase in enquiry from both single men and women who are now realising they are on their own, and the concept of a structured support system that keeps an eye out for them while not invading their privacy, appeals.
On our web directory villages.com.au the number of people searching for a retirement village or wanting education on what villages offer, dropped from a peak of 4,000 a day to 1,800 four weeks into the pandemic.
Now the numbers are back up to 3,800. Across Australia, 63 people move in to a village every day of the week, Monday to Sunday. There are 2,200 villages across Australia, plus another 350 land lease communities.
Taking out the uncertainty of daily living, and the future, must be one of the best antidotes for anxiety and a more secure life.
