MEMBERS of the Central Highlands community have again been meeting with consultants appointed to assess the feasibility of a multi-purpose service.

We found out something -- two of the residential aged-care licences allocated to Central Highlands and administered by Ouse District Hospital have been given away by the Department of Health and Human Services to a private residential aged-care facility in Hobart.

We knew one licence had been sacrificed when DHHS was fast-tracking the transfer of a married couple out of Ouse Nursing Home last year. This couple were popular, alert, outspoken and desperate to remain in the district where they'd lived over 90 years. Their transfer appeared to be considered a pivotal tactic in breaking the log-jam of resistance to closure of the Ouse facility.

Double vacancies are seldom available, so a Central Highlands licence was given to a private facility at which a single vacancy was available, thereby hastening transfer of this couple. They, in fact, shared a single room for some time. We have bid our last farewells to this couple. And their room at Ouse remains intact and empty, as it has done for all the months since they left it.

Phyl Smithurst, Ellendale
Letters to the Editor: The Mercury, Hobart