THE loss of aged care accommodation in Pyramid Hill five years ago is still being felt in the community.
The town’s former bush nursing hospital that became a 23-bed hostel in 1995 and employed up to 30 people remains empty.
The Durham Ox Road buildings deserted since Respect Aged Care moved out the last of 16 residents and locked the doors in November 2019.
Former councillor Cheryl McKinnon, Loddon Shire mayor when the closure was announced,  on Monday said: “It was devastating then and it is still devastating today.”
Mrs McKinnon said local residents unable to live in their own homes had since been forced to leave the district.
“Yet we still have a need for aged care accommodation in the district.”
Respect chief executive officer Jason Binder this week left the door open for the buildings to return to community hands.
“I’m more than happy to engage in constructive and respectful dialogue around a transfer to a community organisation,” Mr Binder said. “We don’t believe a town the size of Pyramid Hill can sustain a 23-bed aged care facility.”
Swan Hill-based Alcheringa,  now part of Respect, took over running the Pyramid Hill hostel in 2010. The Pyramid Hill facility had been slapped with government sanctions that threatened its future.
But former Gordon Shire secretary Trevor Forbes, by then managing the hostel, recalled this week that news of sanctions came as a shock.
“We had passed all 44 areas in  the inspection to continue our  national accreditation and then all of a sudden someone decided the hostel was not compliant,” he said.
Alcheringa also had aged care facilities in Cohuna and St Arnaud and was initially seen as a white knight keeping the hostel doors open, according to Pyramid Hill residents.
But within a decade, Pyramid Hill closed and the hostel’s residents moved to aged homes in other parts of the state.
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