Peter Bell, Joint CEO of Southern Cross Care Queensland
"I like the idea of someone looking after people in their twilight years and not being subservient to shareholders."
Peter: "We make a surplus operating our villages and then we invest it back. Southern Cross Care (SCC) is small enough to be involved with our residents, and I like that too. My background was in public hospitals, including St Vincents in Sydney. Before moving to Queensland, I thought about joining the private hospital sector but I hated the idea of people making a profit out of other people's health misfortune."
"At SCC, we can get close enough to our residents to listen and hear their needs. In Caloundra, they suggested a bigger bus and the Board agreed even though it was not essential, given the numbers. Being a capital item we paid for it, not the residents. Same with water tanks: we pay for them but it saves the residents in water rates."
"My job is to ensure that we are commercially viable so that we cannot only fund better villages but also fund our aged care facilities, which are very capital intensive. It's a fine balancing act. Village residents don't regard themselves as aged; our residents want to live in real homes, with real quality built in. I am proud of the communities we build. We put a lot more into them because we are a church based organisation."
"Our roads are wider, for instance, and we design them with bigger separation zones with a lot more landscaping. This takes land that could be used for more homes - but we put it aside. Our experience in aged care allows us to design village homes that will develop with the resident; we make the bathrooms bigger and stronger, the shower walls are reinforced so that as you get older we can add grab rails. We put more of the little touches into our homes. These things mean you can stay in your home longer."
"Being a charitable operator, we can do these extra things. It seems to work for us because we can reinvest our surpluses. In the seven years that I have been with SCC, our income and our assets have grown considerably. We have a very astute Board of Directors who are all volunteers. Of course we do live in the best state - the growth state."
"From a heart point of view, I would like people when they are choosing a village to consider why the village is being provided to them. Is it to pay a dividend? Or is there a caring provider which can give them comfort and piece of mind that there will be someone there to look after them should they need it at some later stage? That is what we are about. There would be no point working here if it was any other way."
Other stories in this section:
- Christine Daly - Reducing Residents' Costs and Saving the Environment
- Stuart Nicholson, the CEO of Becton's Retirement Business
- Dr June Heinrich, the CEO of Baptist Community Services
- The SCV Group Australia's Toughest Village Job
- John Martin, Managing Director, Babcock & Brown Communities
View all stories in Industry Movers and Shakers »
