Red Cross offering a new service in the shire

NATHAN Brown, Red Cross Manager Community and Business Operations (Victoria and Tasmania) spoke about their operations in Murrindindi Shire.

Unfortunately, the Red Cross vehicle was taken from Murrindindi Shire due to financial considerations. Nathan said, “That was a really hard decision for us because that was, from the Red Cross perspective, our only real service within the wider community, but the thinking was that it could be serviced by other areas, on trips through to Melbourne or vice versa.”

He added that there’s a focus on regaining funding for the service. “We’d love to get that program back up and running,” Nathan said, and they are actively advocating in that area.

He added, “While transport is gone, we do have the opportunity now of the Visiting Volunteer program in the aged care space as well. What we’ve been able to do is to transfer those volunteers who were patient transport drivers into becoming visiting volunteers, providing that social and emotional support to people, particularly for those sitting in My Aged Care package program, the Commonwealth Home Support Package.”

They currently have six volunteers ready to go within Alexandra and are looking to place them with clients.
They’re looking for people who just need a bit of social contact, who want to sit down and have a cup of tea with somebody and have a chat.

All of the costs for the volunteers are covered, including petrol and public liability. They try to match volunteers with people who live nearby. They’re looking to expand the program across….