How a minibus is providing aging people with a new community

MARION Cruickshank can no longer drive further than 5km from Drysdale home.

Living with early-stage dementia, the 82-year-old says that while Drysdale has everything she needs, the world is much bigger than 5kms – and she wants to be in it.

The Bellarine Community Health (BCH) Going Places transport program has helped reconnect Cruickshank with that wider world.

“You need it, instead of just living in four walls,” Cruickshank said. “The people that you meet on the bus give you company.

“I enjoy it immensely, it gets me out of the house. A lot of people are housebound because of illness or because there’s nobody there to help them get out, so they say, ‘Come on, let’s get on the bus’, and we meet the girls and have a chat.”

The bus runs three days a week, offering a reliable lifeline to residents who may have no other way to access groceries, appointments and social connection.

Eligible participants are collected from their homes on the Bellarine and taken to Leopold Gateway Plaza on Wednesdays where they can shop, have a coffee and socialise.

They spend about two hours at the centre, enough time for grocery shopping and to relax at a cafe before returning home.

Cruickshank enjoys meeting with the other participants each week. She said she is still learning plenty of new things from them.

“It’s amazing how many very interesting and intelligent people are around you,” Cruickshank said.

“You just have to talk to them and it’s amazing what you can find out.”

She said the camaraderie among the regular passengers was something public transport could never replicate.

The women on the bus look forward to seeing one another each week, and quickly notice when somebody is absent.

BCH social support assistant Leanne Smith said the program had been well received by all its participants.

“It’s a program that means a lot to our participants as it assists with their independence and staying connected with the community they live in and most importantly the feeling of staying socially connected,” Smith said.

“The chatter on the bus and the coffee and catch up before heading back home with their shopping items is invaluable.”

The Going Places transport program is available to clients with funding under the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP) or the Support at Home Program (SAH).