Calvary Muswellbrook Retirement Community

This is a plea to anyone thinking of dealing with this place… DONT I know most aged care places suck but the way this one is run takes the cake. This non for profit catholic organisation has Satan at the wheel. Before I start, I just would like to say, most of the nurses there I had to deal with were pretty good people. My mother Pamela died a few years ago in here with mnd, there was constant bruising on her during her time, to the point police had to investigate. To no avail obviously. Her general hygiene most days was sub par. When it came time for my mother to starve and dehydrate to death due to mnd taking away her ability to swallow, along came the palliative care nurse Bronwyn to constantly deny her pain medication at the repeated requests of her family and.. believe it or not… the nurses. Bronwyn's belief was, mums not in pain.. Don’t know about you guys but going 2 days without food hurts… my mum went more than 2 weeks with no food or water. It was So painful to watch let me tell you. Especially when a 4 foot tall egotistical narcissist controls the situation, it was almost as if she took satisfaction in the power she had over my mother’s agonising death. To top it off, my mother owed 12k at the end, her house worth barely 200k that she didn’t even own half of was to be sold to pay for the funeral and her debt of 12k. Well Calvery put a caveat on it… meaning it can’t be sold. It took over 2 years to finally sell the property because of them, more than 2 years my mothers funeral didn’t get paid, more than 2 years my mothers grave never had a headstone. They also put interest and charged 4k for every letter they sent, even though they stopped the sale of the house so we could pay them, they ended up charging us 25k just in late fees. They tied our hands legally… then kept charging exuberant fees to a dead person. A NON FOR PROFIT CATHOLIC ORGANISATION Just to remind you guys who you’re dealing with. Side note: the funeral home, that’s a husband and wife run business in town, that’s run for profit, didn’t charge a single cent on late fees or interest over the entire time.. thats speaks volumes about this place. I had enough, I emailed the entire board of directors… every one of them. Thankfully they dropped the excess fees back down to the 12k, I would like to think it was out of the goodness of their heart.. but something tells me otherwise, not great PR around aged care at the time. Can’t imagine this story would have looked good on them. They said the regional manager would contact me over the matter. Been more than a year, haven’t heard anything. So here I am posting this. Carvery’s biggest misstep here for me, was allowing the palliative care nurse BRONWYN (I’ll never forget) to care for my mother in her final moments. she made me feel like a hopeless child who couldn’t even get his mum pain medication in her last painful moments. It’s such a sickening feeling to know your hands are tied and you have absolutely no power to do anything… because of one persons opinion on the matter, one person who holds all the decision making ability over half a dozen family members and workers pleading otherwise. No one agreed with what she was doing, and we were vocal about it.. but she was happy to shut everyone down. How this woman ever passed the interview stage is beyond me. Even though mum had no headstone, the caveat was in place and the excess fees caused an incredibly amount of stress over the years, little Bronwyn took the cake. Because at the end, mum, and the way she was cared for was all that mattered to me. Thanks for the stress, much appreciated

Extra ordinary care

What a beautiful and friendly place...so peaceful and set out wonderfully. Love it so does my parents 😍💓👍✨✨✨