An elderly woman resident of Aveo Freedom Care Albany Creek, who is suffering from severe dementia, was forced to arrange her own COVID-19 vaccination, much to the dismay of her family.
The woman, who will remain anonymous, lives in her own apartment but requires a lot of support from the care community watching over her. Her dementia has progressed to the point where she cannot even recognise her own family.
However, Aveo’s call for its residents to get vaccinated despite their own lack of a supply means she and many other elderly people will have to venture outside to receive their vaccinations. This will cause great fear in residents with dementia as they will be taken out of comfortable and familiar spaces.
Though four of Aveo’s Commonwealth-funded facilities fall under Phase 1A of the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout recommendations, their Freedom Care Communities such as the one in Albany Creek fall under Phase 1B which means they are not currently eligible to receive vaccines.
It will allegedly take the anonymous woman six weeks to go through the necessary steps required to arrange a clinic appointment for vaccination, according to her family. Her regular clinic does not administer vaccines. Given the current state of the woman’s dementia, it would be difficult to change her environment and she would be unable to do so alone.
