Featured image: Communify client Charlie Duhs (left) enjoys a meal with friends.

Healthy@home clients share their diverse life stories

LIFE didn’t quite turn out the way Charlie Duhs planned, but the 81-year-old considers himself blessed that the team from Communify came to his rescue. Charlie had bought himself a one-way ticket to Vietnam where he planned to live out his days. “I should have listened to the locals who warned me about a place [I stayed at], but I didn’t and I got food poisoning,” he says.

His kidneys failed and he lost 12kg in a week. Whe he was only six months into his retirement dream, he was on his way back to Brisbane so specialists could get his kidneys functioning again. That was at the end of 2018.

On his return, he stayed with his sister for a while and then moved into a tiny room in a boarding house at New Farm where shouting and fighting was the order of the day.

“Phones and credit cards went missing, oh, the stuff that went on,” he says.

A health care worker suggested Charlie contact Communify.

“I didn’t bother at first, but then I decided to try and I’m so lucky I did,” he says. “They interviewed me at the Community Centre at New Farm, but when they told me I was in line for housing, I took it with a grain of salt. People wait for years for housing.”

That was almost two years ago, and after that meeting his life changed. And, he says, Communify helped him every step of the way.

“They have been mighty. You wouldn’t believe it,” he says. “They got me a unit close to a train station where Bric Housing runs a tight ship. No fighting, no drinking or drugs, so I’m pleased with that. We are all single people and of course I’m the oldest.”

His unit is in a block of 24, and although he lives by himself, he says he has wonderful neighbours.

“I am so blessed, as I have got three neighbours who look out for me daily. One bloke takes me shopping or for a ride somewhere. We all get on,” he says.

Charlie has led a chequered life, from growing up on a farm in the Sunshine Coast hinterland to owning one of the biggest cleaning businesses in Brisbane.

He was an apprentice butcher, lived in Kingaroy for a few years and settled in Brisbane where he worked on machinery building roads, before moving into the cleaning business. During the 1980s, his business employed more than 100 people and counted corporations such as Woolworths and P&O among its clients.

After 18 years, he moved on and eventually opened a fruit and vegetable shop on the Gold Coast. He was driving a water truck, working on construction of the new airport, when he reluctantly retired at age 72.

“I just decided one day that I was ready to give up work, although I did always enjoy my working life,” he says. “I do miss it sometimes. I don’t get bored now though. If I want something to do I jump on a train and go for a ride.”

And he doesn’t mean to the next suburb or into the city. He rides the rails to Gympie and Maryborough and is looking forward to a trip to see the cattle sales in Rockhampton. Then he hopes to get to Cairns and maybe west to Longreach.

As well as finding him a place to live, Communify has helped Charlie keep active, something that is important to him.
He has come to love the weekly aqua aerobics classes where he has made a lot of friends and loves the Fun Friday activities.

He was surprised, on a recent bus trip to the Roma Street Parkland, that he had never seen it before. This is despite having lived in Brisbane for more than 40 years.

“These trips are really interesting to me,” he says. “They’re a good group. Companionship and meeting people are important to me. I’m not one to sit idle. I am out getting together with people twice a week. I’m not ready to go stale just yet.”

His little apartment is relatively new and easy to keep clean and although he enjoys pottering about in the kitchen – he has just put curried sausages in the slow cooker and makes apple crumble in his convection oven – he appreciates having a housekeeper come in every two weeks to give him a hand.

For the rest, he can manage himself with some help from his neighbours.

“I can manage on my own but Communify has given me a much better quality of life,” he says. “I want to stay active and continue looking after myself in my own little place here. I sometimes get a bit lonely, but I never get depressed. I don’t even know what that means.”

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The Aged Care Diversity Framework

The Aged Care Diversity Framework aims to ensure a high quality aged care system that embraces the diverse characteristics and life experiences of consumers. Older people with diverse needs. characteristics and life experiences may be part of a group or multiple groups that may have encountered exclusion, discrimination and stigma during their lives.

The above article is part of a series that tells the real life stories of healthy@home clients. It has has been approved for publishing by the service provider and client.