Saving Auchinlee
A LAST minute reprieve may have saved a beleaguered Kintyre care home.
AUCHINLEE patients may be able to sleep more easily after protesters made health bosses think again.
At a Kilmory crunch meeting last week it was agreed that Cross Reach, the charitable arm of the Church of Scotland, which runs Auchinlee, and the Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership Integration Joint Board (IJB) may keep the home going until March 31 next year.
The deal is not guaranteed and there will be a further meeting before the end of March this year in a bid to rat- ify the decision. Before last week’s meeting demonstrators lined the entrance to Argyll and Bute Council HQ to fight the closure of the loss-making 24bed specialist dementia facility.
Cross Reach has stated it is unsustainable to continue due to sixfigure losses, including the high cost of recruiting agency workers to cover staff shortages.
An eleventh-hour reprieve in mid-December postponed a final decision for three months, after Cross Reach and the HSCP agreed to share the losses.
Last week their representatives met Argyll and Bute Council and the region’s MSP Michael Russell to discuss the home’s fate, alongside campaigners from the Save Auchinlee Action Group.
Protester Eva Graham said: ‘My 86-year-old mother is not leaving Campbeltown to die elsewhere, where we cannot see her. My mother could die on that road going to somewhere. It could kill her.
‘She has not got the powers of reason. She will not see familiar faces. It could make her dementia 10 times worse. The idea of putting a dementia patient 130 miles away beggars belief. They must be the most vulnerable members of our society.
‘She is not leaving Campbeltown. I will fight it all the way.’
Hilary Rankin’s mum, Moira McArthur, 86, is also a resident of Auchinlee. Hilary said: ‘I am here because they may evict my mother from her home. They may as well be digging her grave. If she is moved outwith Campbeltown, she will turn her face to the wall and wait to die. My mother has given financially to the Church of Scotland since she was a young woman of 23, and she is still giving.’
Argyll First Councillor Donald Kelly said: ‘If this proposed agreement is ratified by all the relevant parties, it will mean a stay of execution.
‘In the meantime, it is vitally important that all other alternative options are worked up and evaluated as quickly as possible.
‘The powers-that-be have wasted enough time and we want to see some positive action which will provide a long-term solution.’