DVA personal care at home

Personal care is help with the things most of us do without thinking until they get hard: showering, dressing, shaving, getting in and out of bed. Trailblazer Community Care provides personal care at home for veterans, war widows and widowers across Brisbane, Logan, Moreton Bay and the Redlands.

Our care workers are supervised by Exavier Rikonda, a registered nurse with 14 years of nursing experience. That supervision is what makes the difference when a shower is also the moment someone notices a red heel or a swollen ankle.

What personal care includes

• Showering or a sponge bath
• Dressing and undressing
• Shaving, hair care and grooming
• Help on and off the toilet and with continence aids
• Getting in and out of bed or a chair
• Applying creams and checking skin
• Putting on compression stockings
• Getting ready for an appointment or an outing

We work at your pace. Some people want the worker to do most of the task. Others want someone standing by in case of a slip, and would rather do the rest themselves. Both are fine, and the care plan says which.

Morning visits can start from 6am.

Why a nurse supervises personal care

Personal care workers see you more often than anyone else in your care team. Because they see your skin and how you're moving up close, they're often the first to notice something changing.

At Trailblazer, workers report those changes to the nurse. A small pressure area found on a Tuesday can be treated that week, instead of becoming a wound that takes months to heal. If you also need DVA community nursing, it's the same team, so you don't have to tell your story twice.

How DVA funds personal care

DVA can fund personal care at home through more than one program. Under the Community Nursing program, personal care is planned after a nursing assessment and supervised by a registered nurse. For people with lower care needs, other DVA home care programs may apply instead. DVA decides which one fits, based on your assessed needs.

Trailblazer is on DVA's Panel of Community Nursing Providers for both community nursing and personal care. If you're eligible and DVA approves your care, DVA pays us directly, so you won't receive a bill. Our DVA services page lists the areas our contract covers.

For the current rules, check the Department of Veterans' Affairs website or call 1800 VETERAN (1800 838 372). Our guide to DVA community nursing eligibility and referrals explains how referrals work.

Safety in the bathroom

Wet floors and tight spaces make the bathroom one of the riskier rooms in the house. At the first visit, the nurse will look at how the space is set up: whether there's a grab rail, a shower chair, a non-slip mat, enough room to move. If equipment would help, we'll tell you and suggest you talk with your GP or an occupational therapist about getting it.

We'll also ask how you've been managing so far. People are often doing more than they need to, and putting up with a near miss or two before asking for help.

Dignity and choice

Accepting help with showering is a big step for a lot of people, especially those who have spent a working life looking after others. We take that seriously. You can ask for a male or female worker, and we'll do our best to arrange it. You decide what you'd like help with, and that can change from one day to the next.

Our workers are screened and trained, and their work is checked by the nurse. The detail is on our quality and safeguarding page. If you're unhappy with any part of your care, our feedback and complaints page explains how to tell us.