Dementia

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (16:16): I was not sure whether that was a reflection on me, Deputy Speaker. This afternoon I am pleased to speak about the Morialta Dementia Friendly Communities Forum, which I was very proud to host in partnership with the Campbelltown City Council's Home and Community Care Program and Alzheimer's Australia SA on 25 November. A total of 148 members of our community came along to talk about how we can make our communities more dementia friendly.

In particular, I would like to acknowledge Melissa Fielke, the Home and Community Care (HACC) team leader from Campbelltown City Council, Deb Treherne, also from HACC, who is the social options coordinator at Campbelltown City Council, Phil Saunders, the policy officer at Alzheimer's Australia SA, and Ian Gladstone, a consumer diagnosed with younger onset dementia. These people were of invaluable assistance in organising and presenting at the forum, and I commend them to other members of parliament who may be considering taking up the opportunity Alzheimer's Australia has presented to conduct similar forums. I would also like to acknowledge the shadow minister for health and ageing, the Hon. Stephen Wade MLC, who was in attendance at the forum and who greatly appreciated the opportunity to hear those presentations.

People living with dementia need to feel as if they still belong to their community, their social networks, their clubs, and, importantly, to feel that they have a role to play and a sense of purpose. A dementia-friendly community is one where the wider community is dementia aware. Education is important, and educating people in the community to better understand how they may help people they confront who may have dementia. A dementia-friendly community is one where we have reduced stigma and myths about dementia.

One of the comments, for example, that was made at the forum was about one of the myths regarding dementia. People do not understand that it is, in fact, fatal, and the comment was made, 'I don't think people would make so many jokes about me forgetting things if they knew that I was going to die from this condition.' It is the sort of thing that most people do not have a full understanding of, but by talking about it, by learning about it, and by actively seeking information about it we can all make that contribution to making our community more dementia friendly.

A dementia-friendly community is a place where what a person can do is the focus and not what they cannot do, where a person is not hidden away or ignored because people are ignorant or uncomfortable speaking to them, or dealing with them or helping them. One member of the community came along and asked a very simple question. He has been a carer for his wife, who has had dementia for a number of years now, and he was very emotional when he asked the experts on the panel, 'How do I respond when people ask me how my wife is? What am I supposed to say? They want to hear me say that she is okay or that she is getting better, but she is not getting better. Every day she gets worse. It is a degenerative condition and every day she gets worse.'

This fellow contributes an enormous amount to the community. He is a volunteer, he is a member of Rotary and a number of groups where I have come into contact with him before, and he just wanted some advice on how to do that. He had never really had the opportunity to do so in a forum like this before. This is not something that we like talking about; it is not something that people are comfortable talking about.

I encourage all members, for a start, if you know somebody whose partner or loved one has dementia, it is probably not the nice thing that it sounds like to ask, 'How are they doing?' every time you see them. You can ask how the carer is doing; that would be a good start, for anybody can help.

A dementia-friendly community is also a community where the physical environment enables people to get out and about safely and where support services are helpful and enabling. There are more than 332,000 Australians living with dementia, and we identified that apparently there are about 800 in Morialta. That will continue to grow—one person every six minutes and 170 people per week in South Australia with dementia alone.

At that 2½-hour forum, in addition to hearing the presentations and the expert information about dementia and the consumer perspective, which was incredibly well received, one key focus was that every person there—the 148 people who came along—was given the opportunity to just think of two ideas of their own about how to make our community in Morialta more dementia friendly. It was a wonderful exercise.

I have about a page and a half of notes these people came up with but with only 15 seconds left I am afraid I am not going to have time to read them into the Hansard, but I will be including them in my next newsletter so that everyone in the community can continue to contribute and make our community more dementia friendly, which will do an immeasurable amount of good for the thousands of South Australians who suffer from this condition.

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