Rev celebrates 35 years of care
Community stalwart has affinity with Highfields
FEW people have as strong an affinity with the Highfields retirement community as Reverend Phil West.
Rev West, who serves as both Carinity Brownesholme manager and its chaplain, has been involved with the retirement village from before its inception.
In her will, Molly Browne requested that her family’s 120-acre dairy farm be developed into a retirement village. In 1991, as Minister of Highfields Baptist Church, Rev West was enlisted to be part of a steering committee to oversee the new use for the land, bequeathed to the Baptist Union of Queensland.
Rev West is now celebrating 35 years of service with Carinity, formerly known as Queensland Baptist Care, which operates Brownesholme. He has managed Brownesholme since it opened in 1995.
“It’s been a privilege to serve the Lord and the church. It’s not always been easy being the manager and chaplain but I have a good relationship with the people I work with,” Rev West says.
Originally from Warwick, Rev West has always lived on the Darling Downs apart from a short period spent studying in Sydney. He has a long relationship with the Highfields district through his work with Baptist ministry, starting as a student pastor in the town in 1982.
“When I first came to Highfields it only had a service station and a corner store that doubled as the post office. No mail delivery but you could collect mail,” Rev West says.
“Highfields was a very small farming community and the Brownesholme property was just a grass paddock with agistment by a neighbour. Highfields is now a large sleeping dormitory to Toowoomba, a leafy community set on the edge of the Great Dividing Range. Its growth has been exponential.”
Carinity Brownesholme, home to 82 residents living in 61 independent living units, is also growing. Rev West says Carinity plans to build a 96-suite residential aged care community on the site as part of its model for integrated seniors living.
Carinity CEO Jon Campbell says Rev. West embodies the qualities that are at the heart of Carinity’s work in communities across Queensland.