Accommodation

A carer’s perspective on Nest: Sharon and Marcia’s story

Article by The Nest Team

For carers like Sharon, Nest offers control, choice, convenience and confidence in their search for the right accommodation for a loved one with disability. Read Sharon and Marcia’s story on the Nest blog now.

At the age of 48, Out-of-Home Care Case Worker and mother of two, Marcia Bourke travelled to America to take part, for the first time, in the annual Vietnam Vets motorbike charity run. Consisting of approximately 500 bikes, the ride starts in California and concludes, 10 days later, in Washington DC to coincide with Veterans Day.

On 20 May 2012 – the third day of the ride in Kansas, Marcia, a pillion passenger, was severely injured in an accident that involved four other motorbikes.

Initially she was taken to a hospital in Kansas but due to being unconscious and suffering traumatic brain injury, she was soon transferred by helicopter to St Anthony Hospital in Denver, Colorado where she remained until late June that year.

Marcia, semi-conscious, was escorted back to Australia with a full medical team in a Medivac jet to Royal North Shore Hospital, where she stayed for the next three months.

Once Marcia had been medically stabilised she was transferred to Ryde Rehabilitation Centre for intense rehabilitation treatment that spanned four months and included physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy. Whilst the rehabilitation consultant’s prognosis wasn’t optimistic, the plan was to get Marcia as independent as possible.

At the beginning of January 2013, the doctors advised Marcia’s sister, Sharon Jacobs, that there was no more they could do for her and that she required 24-hour care and to get that care, she would need to go to a nursing home. Because Marcia was deemed high needs, not all nursing homes would accept her. By the end of the month, a nursing home placement was found for her.

During her time in the nursing home Marcia wasn’t able to operate her own wheelchair in case she would knock over the facility’s elderly patients. She shared a room with two others and over the course of time, three of her fellow roommates passed away. What made it harder for Marcia was that often the women she shared her room with didn’t want the television on so Marcia would lay there with nothing to do. All this made Marcia incredibly depressed.

During this time Sharon continued to hope much more suitable accommodation would come up for Marcia. But not knowing where to look made things all that much harder for Sharon.

After spending approximately 18 months in a nursing home, Marcia was finally moved to age appropriate and specialist accommodation, and her own room that was equipped for her needs. Within days of arriving at the Guildford purpose-built home, Marcia was operating her wheelchair and in the care of trained specialists.

“Not only was it difficult enough to deal with what happened to Marcia, but finding this accommodation lifted a load of our mind. Our mother is 84 and she was crying tears of happiness – Marcia’s two boys felt like the place felt like home. It was a long journey, but we now feel we have done the best for Marcia under the circumstances,” says Sharon Jacobs.

A system like Nest could have certainly helped Sharon during this difficult time and even though Sharon hopes not to even need to register with Nest on Marcia’s behalf she can see huge potential in the platform for other carers in a similar position to her.

The Nest Team is grateful to Sharon and Marcia for sharing their story and being part of our launch.


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