Kellock Lodge takes fire in their stride

KELLOCK Lodge CEO Tania Hunter and board chair Ian Gibb spoke about the actions that the Alexandra aged care facility undertook when the fire was approaching.

Tania said, “As soon as we heard there was a catastrophic day forecast, Kellock Lodge put their bushfire preparedness plan into place. We contacted our resident families, saying that if they wanted to take their resident out, they needed to do so before the day.”

Kellock Lodge has been advised for the last 15 years by the CFA District Commander that they stay in place and not evacuate residents.

Such an evacuation would be very complex and would put added trauma onto the residents, who are often very frail with high care needs.

The CFA have always told the facility that they would supply CFA vehicles and crews to them. Tania said, “On the day they did do that.

We had CFA trucks looking after us for the whole day into the night. I think they left about midnight.”

While the fire approach was frightening, “it was business as usual in here,” Tania said. “Well, it wasn’t exactly business as normal, but the atmosphere inside Kellock was really quite calm. There was no sense of panic. We had up to six firefighting units around the perimeter and surrounding roads all day, and the residents were really unruffled, you’d have to say.”

While it was a challenging time for staff, “We had great leadership from Tania, our CEO, and Maria, her second in charge,” Ian said. “Things went along pretty smoothly. Even though we were understaffed, we coped…

Image: KELLOCK LODGE: Lisa (Administration), Maria (Manager Corporate Services), Tania (CEO), Leanne (Personal Care) and Bruce (Maintenance) were all caring for residents during the Longwood fire. Kellock Lodge would like to sincerely thank all staff who worked on the day.