Vale Merle Mitchell: Aged care campaigner and community activist dies aged 87
Highly respected ripe care campaigner and community activist, Merle Mitchell, has died at her Melbourne home, aged 87.
Formerly president of the Aussi Council of Societal Services (ACOSS), Merle became loved and loved for her pity and tireless work in the community.
In August 2020, Merle painted a devastating delineation of sprightliness inside a residential aged care home when she presented to the royal commission into Cured Care Quality and Safety.
"I know I'm here until I die, so every morning when I Wake up I think, 'Damn I've woken up.' I am sure if you asked most people here they would all say they would rather be dead, rather than living more, if they're downright," Ouzel told the commissioners.
Merle told the regal commission that when COVID-19 lockdowns hit she was cragfast inside her room alone, apart from four physiotherapy sessions a week, with nothing to look at but a brick wall.
She revealed her distress at unwinding into residential aged care.
"The sense of loss that comes from waving to aged care is genuinely underestimated," she shared. "I had lost my independence, check over my life and I matte I had irrecoverable my connexion with my so much-loved community."
Despite the conditions, European blackbird had the experience and insight to project improvements for the aged care home, umpteen of which were enforced.
Wisdom and insight properly until the end
Originally pot-trained as a kindergarten teacher, Merle worked for few years in the classroom.
She went on to establish a school day and kindergarten in her local suburb of Springvale in Victoria, and founded the Springvale Community Aid and Advice Bureau to funding local disadvantaged and diverse communities.
She served as president of ACOSS from 1989 to 1993.
Merle helped to develop state and federal multi-ethnic welfare policies, and remained a social group policy advisor, community activist and older care consumer advocate even while living in human action aged guardianship.
Connected ABC Tuner, Hung Vo, former Lieutenant President of ACOSS, told host Fran Kelly that although Merle's comments at the royal commission were annihilative, they too gave her hope.
Hung knew Merle and her husband Eric from the time she arrived in Australia as a refugee shaver in 1978.
When her kin arrived in Melbourne in the middle of winter, Eric was principal of the local Springvale shoal and Merle was president of the Springvale Community Aid and Advice Bureau, which became a second home for many refugees, including those WHO had bear on Australia by boat.
Unneurotic, Merle and Eric were called "the people's couple". Hung said IT was an "honour" to know the "amazing twosome" who were "surrounded by people who adored them".
Eric developed groundbreaking ways to engage parents, WHO often spoke atomic number 102 English and worked seven years a hebdomad, in the shoal community. He introduced international school festivals where families brought in traditional food, and employed bilingualist staff to help with communication.
"They had a way of creating a sense you belonged in the community," Adorned recounted.
Merle's Community Aid and Advice Agency became familiar by its street number, 'Figure Five'.
"Whatever the issue was – you couldn't send out money back to Vietnam, someone was experiencing family wildness, a child was in custody – you'll make help at List Five," Hung said.
European blackbird "had such wisdom right to the close and we always sought her counsel," Hung said.
Her comments at the royal commission were about Merle "speechmaking up with purport".
"That's what I've learnt from Merle Eastern Samoa a mentor. She's a change broker, she's an advocate. She'll sound off."
Ouzel's vigour, dedication and purpose meant she was effecting change right up until the end of her life.
Source: https://hellocare.com.au/vale-merle-mitchell-aged-care-campaigner-and-community-activist-dies-aged-87/
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