16th September 2020

Re: Adventist Retirement Plus – COVID-19 Update

Dear Residents, Clients, Family and Friends,

Since my last update there have not been any significant changes to the COVID-19 landscape in Queensland. All our facilities remain COVID-19 free. There has however been a new Aged Care Direction issued by the Queensland Government. Whilst this new direction requires aged care providers to ensure they have certain documentation and plans in place this has no direct impact on you or how we are currently delivering our services.

It is likely that you would have heard that the Queensland Chief Health Officer has indicated that the current restrictions will not change until Queensland has had 14 days of no new infections. It is unclear at this stage whether this will have a direct relationship to the areas that have been designated as restricted which has resulted in Melody Park and Victoria Point being in lockdown.

The current restricted areas as designated by the Queensland Government can be found at https://www.qld.gov.au/health/conditions/health-alerts/coronavirus-covid-19/current-status/aged-care-restricted-areas-covid-19. There is also a link on this page to the most current Aged Care Direction.

Our organisation continues to track and monitor the COVID-19 cases in Queensland to ensure that we take the appropriate action as soon as possible where the circumstances warrant it. I have again included in Table 1 a copy of the COVID-19 movement statistics over the last two weeks. As mentioned previously the rows highlighted in yellow are those regions in which we operate a facility, and the other highlighted rows are those regions that adjoin a region in which we operate.

We remain focused on finding ways to improve our service despite the current challenges. To this end, we have now implemented the vaccination details improvement in our sign-in system. Vaccination batch details no longer have to entered each time a person arrives at our site, rather they are remembered by the system once the initial visitor setup is completed. Further, given the likelihood of this pandemic remaining a risk for some time, we are currently working to deliver an online booking system for our visitors. This will remove the need for visitors to book via our reception enabling visitors to check availability for and make a booking 24/7.

A quick reminder for those of you impacted by the lockdown at Victoria Point and Melody Park, please contact our reception team if you would like to arrange an alternative non-contact visit.

Finally, as I visited our sites over the last two weeks, I was again reminded just what a great job our team do under some difficult circumstances. At present our team at Victoria Point and Melody Park are currently wearing surgical face masks as required under the Aged Care Direction. I also wore one of these masks whilst at site and, aside from reminding you just how important good dental hygiene is, it also reinforced how much more difficult their work is when wearing one. Having to re-breathe at least part of your exhaled air really does impact your energy levels.

So please keep our team in your thoughts and prayers as they do all they can to keep us all safe from this terrible virus and thank you for your understanding and support as we work through this together.

Yours sincerely,

Eric Anderson

CEO