Janet was determined to remain in her home. Living in a remote area of WA, the former nurse overcame a spinal injury, the loss of her husband, and a multitude of rejections from home care providers to secure the support she needs. Here’s her story.
While searching for reliable home care, Janet Huggins almost gave up.
She lives in a remote area of Western Australia, and only a couple of home care providers are nearby. Her options felt limited from the outset, but she thought she had a unique advantage: she was a nurse.
Janet spent several decades as an accomplished R.N., working in hospitals and in the community. She hoped her experience would help her navigate the aged care system and find support. Instead, she found herself struggling to make sense of everything.
‘It was all just too hard,’ Janet says while recalling her search. ‘I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I was just going down a rabbit hole. It was all so negative.’
Janet’s home care journey began six years ago, when she suffered a spinal injury that severely compromised her mobility and forced her to retire from nursing. When Janet speaks about her time as a nurse, the joy it brought her is evident—but so is the pain of leaving her career behind prematurely.
For years after the injury, Janet’s husband was her primary carer.
The couple moved to Australia from England in the early 1980s, a ‘leap of faith’ they felt was necessary to build the life they envisioned. Janet’s husband was in the building trade, and following her spinal injury, he served as her primary source of support until his passing in early 2026.
‘Everything fell in a heap,’ Janet says. ‘But I was determined to stay in my home.’
And that’s when the search for a home care provider began.
As a long-time resident of a regional area, Janet is accustomed to having limited access to services. The dearth of home care options, however, was eye-opening.
‘I was at the point of giving up,’ she recalls now. ‘I think a lot of people would’ve given up way before that.’
The process started smoothly enough: a palliative care worker who looked after Janet’s husband helped her complete the initial assessment, and she was approved for support. She contacted the local providers she remembered from her years as a nurse. However, the rejections began piling up. Several providers told her they didn’t have space; others didn’t even respond to her enquiries.
As the disappointments accumulated, Janet realised that not even her extensive healthcare background would help.
‘For anybody who doesn’t have that inside knowledge—I found it hard enough—but for anyone else it’d be a nightmare,’ she explains. ‘Because nobody sits you down and gives you a list of who to contact and what’s available.’
The intimidating search finally took an unexpected positive turn when a former nursing colleague referred Janet to The CareSide.
At first, she didn’t think much of it.
The CareSide doesn’t have an office in Janet’s town, so she assumed it was another dead end.
‘But I rang anyway,’ she says, ‘and it was amazing.’
‘From my initial phone call, I was so surprised by how easy it was once I found out who to contact to start services.’
Like many other home care recipients in Australia, Janet assumed that home care providers must have an office nearby to be able to support the people they serve. Learning that wasn’t the case, and that The CareSide could support her despite the distance, was the breakthrough she had been waiting for.
Soon after her initial enquiry with The CareSide, Janet was connected with her personal Care Manager, Joana, who gently guided her through the onboarding process and helped her determine exactly what she needed to remain safe and comfortable in her home.
A week later, Cheney showed up at Janet’s door.
‘Oh, she is absolutely marvellous,’ Janet says of Cheney, her support worker. ‘She is amazing, and so full of initiative. She has a look around the house, sees what needs doing, and gets stuck in.’
Janet’s spinal injury drastically limits what she can do around her home, but with Cheney’s help, everything is taken care of now.
‘All the little things I never expected or even thought to ask about—those things make a huge difference,’ Janet shares with the palpable gratitude of someone who almost gave up on finding support.
‘I just wish I’d contacted The CareSide first. It would’ve made the whole experience so much easier,’ she says.
