Rights & Responsibilities

Each Resident Has The Right To:

• Full and effective use of his or her personal, civil, legal and consumer rights.
• Quality care which is appropriate to his or her needs.
• Full information about his or her own state of health and about available treatments.
• Be treated with dignity and respect, and to live without exploitation, abuse or neglect.
• Live without discrimination or victimisation and without being obliged to feel grateful to those providing his or her care and accommodation.
• Personal privacy.
• Live in a safe, secure & homelike environment, and to move freely both within and outside the residential care service without undue restriction.
• Be treated and accepted as an individual and to have his or her individual preferences taken into account and treated with respect.
• Continue his or her cultural and religious practices and retain the language of his or her choice without discrimination.
• Select and maintain social and personal relationships with any person without fear, criticism or restriction.
• Freedom of speech.
• Maintain his or her personal independence, which includes recognition of personal responsibility for his or her own actions and choices, even though some action may involve an element of risk which the resident has the right to accept, and that should then not be used to prevent or restrict those actions.
• Maintain control over, and to continue making decisions about, the personal aspects of his or her daily life, financial affairs and possessions.
• Be involved in activities, associations and friendships of his or her choice, both within and outside the residential aged care facility.
• Have access to services and activities that are generally available in the community.
• Be consulted on, and to choose to have input into, decisions about the living arrangements of the residential aged care facility.
• Have access to information about his or her rights, care, accommodation, and any other form of information which relates to him or her personally.
• Complain and take action to resolve disputes.
• Have access to advocates and other avenues of redress.
• Be free from reprisals, or a well-founded fear of reprisal, in any form for taking action to enforce his or her rights.

Each Resident Has The Responsibility:

• To respect the rights and needs of other  people within the residential care facility community as a whole.
• To respect the rights of staff and the proprietor to work in an environment which is free from harassment and bullying.
• To care for his or her own health and well-being, as far as he or she is capable.
• To inform his or her medical practitioner, as far as he or she is able, about his or her relevant medical history and his or her current state of health.