A contractor at one of Ryman Healthcare's Melbourne construction sites tests positive for Covid-19

Tuesday, 4 August 2020

Ryman Healthcare’s Weary Dunlop retirement village in Melbourne will be locked down under the state of emergency and Victoria’s level 4 lockdown rules.

No residents or staff at Ryman Healthcare have Covid-19 after a fire panel technician who worked for a short time at one of its Melbourne construction sites tested positive for the virus, Ryman says.

Ryman’s corporate affairs manager Dave King said no residents or any of its staff had had Covid-19, either in New Zealand or Australia.

Six days ago a fire panel technician visited the construction site of Burwood East, one of Ryman’s Melbourne retirement villages being built, which does not have residents. He had no contact with other employees and several days later the technician tested positive for Covid-19, Australia’s the HeraldSun reported yesterday.

King said the technician wore a face mask and was only on the site for about an hour. A week later he rang the company to say he had tested positive for Covid-19. Work stopped on the site which underwent a “deep clean.”

*Coronavirus: restricting visitor access to prevent Covid-19 spread in rest homes

“We haven’t had any cases of Covid among our staff or our residents to this point today, in either New Zealand or Australia,” King said.

Ryman’s other operational village in Melbourne is Nellie Melba where construction of the latest stage is underway.

Victoria’s level 4 lockdown brings into question whether New Zealand’s largest retirement village operator can achieve its target of building 900 beds and units this financial year.

Construction at three Ryman Healthcare residential villages in Victoria would be “significantly reduced’ during the Melbourne level 4 lockdown, the company said.

The villages under level 4 lockdown with construction work are Nellie Melba, Burwood East, Ryman’s biggest construction site, and Aberfeldie, where the construction workforce will have to reduce to 25 per cent.

Two other villages under construction, the Highton and Ocean Grove villages, outside metropolitan Melbourne, were not subject to the level 4 restrictions and would be able to continue under level 3 restrictions.

“At this early stage of the lockdown it is hard to predict what impact it may have on our previously communicated target of delivering 900 beds and units in the 2021 financial year,” Ryman said.

Its two operational villages, Weary Dunlop, open since 2014, and Nellie Melba, in the last stages of development, had been in lockdown for the past four weeks with visiting restricted and full pandemic infection control measures in place.

Ryman locked down the two villages four weeks ahead of state requirements, King said.

The village teams had been delivering groceries and essential supplies to residents and helping to ensure residents could keep in touch over Zoom and by phone.

The reduction to 25 per cent of the construction workforce meant the sites did not have to be shut down and mothballed as they were in New Zealand under the level 4 lockdown rules for four weeks and would be quicker to restart, King said.