21 July 2021

Dear Residents, Families and Friends,

Yesterday the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced that the current COVID-19 restrictions will remain in place for an additional seven days until 11.59pm Tuesday 27 July 2021.

Unfortunately, this means that visitor restrictions for residential aged care homes continue to be in place and visits are only permitted in certain circumstances and for ‘end of life’ reasons.  While this is difficult for everyone, it is essential to minimise the spread of the highly infectious Delta strain of the virus.  As always, our focus, is taking care of you and your loved one, our staff on the frontline and our Doutta Galla community.

Keeping in contact with your loved one is important, and we will do all we can to support and facilitate interaction by enabling video calls and window visits where possible.  Please contact the home to make a time to have a video call or to set up a window visit.

We also continue to work with our government sponsored agencies to facilitate access to the COVID vaccine for all our residents and staff.  I know this is a challenging time and that some people may still have concerns about the vaccination.  The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Victoria | Coronavirus Victoria website has quite a bit of information about vaccinations and I encourage you to read more here: About COVID-19 vaccines | Coronavirus Victoria.  Vaccination is one of the key steps in helping to stop the spread of the virus and you can click here to Book your vaccine appointment | Coronavirus Victoria.

As a reminder, communications from Doutta Galla are sent directly to the resident and to the nominated resident representative.  If there are additional people in your family who would like to receive communications directly, can you please let the Home know their details and we can add them to the email list for you.  All of my general communications, including previous letters from me, are available on the Doutta Galla website at https://www.dgas.org.au/coronavirus-updates/ and can be accessed at any time.

Please contact the Home if you have any questions or concerns.  In addition, you are welcome to contact us via the email address covid19questions@dgas.org.au.

If you or your family would like more support during this time, please reach out to OPAN (Older Persons Advisory Network) on 1800 237 981.  They are available 6am-10pm, 7 days a week.  The other organisation that can assist you is Elder Rights Advocacy Victoria who can be reached on 1800 171 866 for support and advice.

Yours sincerely,

Vanda Iaconese

CEO