"My name is Vicky, and I have lived over half my life in an aged-care facility..."

I want to live in the community with other young people, and have a life.  Living in a nursing home has meant I've lost all my friends.  Even though I make friends with the other elderly residents, they die.

Being surrounded by death is upsetting and depressing.

I want to live in the community in a shared house with other young people my age and see the latest films, go to the pub for a drink and help other YPINH get the life in the community they want.

Leanne is 34 years old and has Muscular Dystrophy.  The light of her life is her daughter Dominique.  Though she doesn’t know it yet, 7-year-old Dominique also has Muscular Dystrophy.

Leanne receives a minimal number of support hours that are now insufficient to deliver the support she needs.  When she applied for more hours, Leanne was told that she and her husband, John, should look for a nursing home for Leanne to move into.

Injured in a car accident when she was just 16 years old, Vicky spent nearly a year in hospital. 

The acquired brain injury and spinal cord injuries she sustained left her needing long term care and support for the rest of her life. 

But she was sent straight to an aged care nursing home because the community based accommodation she needed did not exist in the regional town in which her family then lived.

Now 35, Vicky has no friends and sees her brother and father sporadically.  In the opinion of the nursing home’s Director of Nursing, Vicky’s health and quality of life would be dramatically improved with rehabilitation and community access. 

But Vicky cannot access these or other disability support services in the nursing home.

Though she was initially placed in an aged care facility because no other option existed at the time, living in an aged care nursing home means that Vicky is no longer on the disability sector’s ‘radar’.  As a result, she has missed out on placement in community based living options that have been developed in her town over the last 19 years.

Aged Care Nursing Homes provide palliative care for older people in the end stages of their lives and one of the hardest things, Vicky says, is making friends with the older residents and then having them die.  Her own mother died 2 years ago and Vicky says that when one of the older residents of the home dies, she relives the pain of her mother’s death all over again.

Despite living over half her life in an aged care home without the rehabilitation and other supports she needs to have a decent quality of life, Vicky remains a determined and optimistic young woman.  She continues to advocate for community based accommodation and support choices for herself and other young people with high care needs in her area, and has waged a one-woman campaign around this need in local TV, radio and news media. 

Well known in her local community, Vicky has the complete support of the nursing home and its staff in these endeavours and they are proud of her efforts in this regard.

Yet this remains an extraordinary achievement given the lack of supports available to her.

Vicky lives in an aged care facility in regional Victoria.  She wants to live in a shared house with other young people her age and get on with her life.