ITB December 2024/January 2025 - Magazine - Page 14
“There’s no ROI on a music and dementia program that might cost
$500,000. The ROI is seeing residents with dementia come to life
and smile after they have listened to a playlist that you’ve co-designed
with family based on music that played a major part of their lives.”
CHRIS MAMARELIS FCPA, WHIDDON
to positively impact the lives of our residents, clients
and the people who are providing that care,”
he says. “That’s where our focus is now and where
it will continue to be.”
MEMBER PROFILE
DEDICATED TO THE CAUSE
Mamarelis has more than 25 years of financial and
managerial experience across aged care, travel,
hospitality, sports administration and retail.
He has also held several board appointments
and currently sits on the New South Wales Member
Advisory Committee for the Aged & Community Care
Providers Association (ACCPA).
The aged-care sector has endured significant
challenges — and criticism — as a result of the Royal
Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in
2018. More recently, the sector has been affected by
pandemic-related pressures.
Whiddon has been an outlier, receiving praise for
its level of care and services. The company caters
to about 1600 residential aged-care places in 19
locations across New South Wales and Queensland.
Mamarelis is grateful that he can apply his
commercial sector experience to the not-for-profit
space. After a long stint as Whiddon’s CFO, Mamarelis
took the reins as CEO in 2015 and has overseen
several wellbeing programs centred on both
employees and residents.
Whiddon is known for initiatives such as Hen Power,
an animal-therapy program that engages participants in
hen keeping, to reduce loneliness and promote health
and wellbeing. It also led the charge with innovative
point-of-care COVID-19 testing initiatives for aged-care
employees and residents during the pandemic.
This included the overhaul of the centralised
kitchen model at its homes, replacing them with
home-style kitchens.
“Commercially, it makes sense to have a centralised
kitchen, particularly if you have four or five homes
14 INTHEBLACK Dec 2024/Jan 2025 SPECIAL EDITION
on the one campus,” Mamarelis says. “However, if
you’re a resident and you are consuming that food,
it is often cold and it is often mass produced, even
though it is cooked on site.
“We listened to our residents, who wanted a
change. The positive consumer feedback we now
receive regarding our food is around the 90 per cent
mark, which, in aged care, is kind of crazy. We’re very
proud of it.”
GOOD PR IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Another element that sets Whiddon apart from many
aged-care providers is its embrace of public relations
and marketing.
In an industry that has often been “burnt” by the
media, Mamarelis believes that the wider public and
communities need to hear positive messages about
aged care. “It’s really about changing perceptions
and focusing on the good work that the people are
doing in aged care,” he says.
Mamarelis’s standing and experience within
the sector led to him providing expert evidence
at two royal commission hearings, one on
relationship-based care and another on aged-care
funding. With the former, he had a chance to
explain how Whiddon has been able to provide
the sort of high-quality care that has eluded
some competitors.
“With relationship-based care, it’s a very simple
concept,” he says. “For us, it’s about ensuring that
the same people are rostered on to look after the
same residents. You are encouraging and supporting
the relationship to deliver better outcomes.”
Under questioning from the commissioners,
Mamarelis admitted that a lack of funding and
resources can make aged care a tough sector in
which to operate. How can this be overcome? “I said
to them, ‘Well, you have to find a way if you’re going
to be true to what you’re doing as an organisation’.”
