With Oasis Living Solutions, it’s all about family!

Offering a new, streamlined model for accessing the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme), clients are individuals encouraged and supported to live to their full potential, rather than numbered customers receiving pre-set services.

“I think the community are seeking providers who can look after their family members, with the same care that they take themselves,” Oasis Service Delivery Manager, Sonya Holmes believes.

“Anything a client needs, we’re there to help them, if it’s nine at night with an emergency call over a water system that wants fixing, we’re there like family, on-call, 24/7,” Support Coordinator and Business Development Manager, Amy Wilson added.

The Oasis philosophy is all about servicing clients up to their needs, rather than down to their funding limits, co-founders, Naveen Jost and Akhila Muraleekrishnan, told Orange City Life.

“We see what’s in their NDIS plan, and work around it for the best outcomes for each client,” Akhila explained.

“For instance, we don’t work strictly to limits, we might have funding for six hours rehabilitation, but we’ll give them eight,” Naveen revealed.

Perfect example of this, is how the team regularly work around funding shortfalls to deliver the service required.

“Sometimes we have a client that needs overnight support, not just someone ‘sleeping-in ’ we make sure we cover that,” Akhila said.

“We also had a client who had funding for a two-to-one ratio (two clients per carer), we put the person straight-in and then sought a second client later, rather than signing the second client before we started.”

Operating out of a small Orange office – with Sonya the administrative whizz keeping everything operating smoothly – Oasis is setting the standard for a streamlined model of NDIS providers.

“We keep overheads and costs down with 100 employees over six houses, five in Orange and one in Bathurst, with both NDIS and private clients for aged care as well… I’m an accountant, and I do the figures to ensure that the books are always balanced,” Naveen said.

“This is our management team, we’re a small group and we manage to do it all, though the NDIS is actually quite compliance-heavy,” Sonya disclosed.

Secret to their success, Akhila believes, is ensuring that each program is directly aimed at what their patient requires.

“At the end of the day, it’s a personalised service for each client; people appreciate that, and they get the attention that they deserve,” Akhila said.

“A lot of people come to Amy as their first contact and they know that we’re there for them as individuals,” she added.

The human dimensions that Oasis has maintained over its 18 months in operation are, in fact, their greatest strength, Amy said.

“They don’t look at us like we’re a big company, we look at the person as a whole person, not as a financial interaction.

“We’re more tailored to give back to the community at a price they can afford, for instance, we generally don’t charge for our clinical nurses when they visit people,” Amy revealed.

In an increasingly ageing society, she explained, this is to ensure that people can stay in their family residence, for as long as practicable.

“Our services are about keeping our clients out of hospital as much as possible, keeping the older generation in their community.

“Many services charge a minimum of two hours for a registered nurse to come out to people in their homes, but if they only have $50 in their plan, that’s what we charge them; that’s our model,” Amy explained.

Most of the Oasis crew have lifelong experience in the caring professions that you simply can’t get from academic qualifications alone, Akhila said.

“They’ve all not just come into the industry, they’ve spent long periods as house leaders or team leaders, they’ve got lived experiences and they can relate to clients.”

“Some of us have got 35 years of nursing behind us, and that’s something you can’t teach… we also cover mental health as well as physical issues,” Sonya said.

Oasis, they explained, is among the second-generation of service providers in this space, with important lessons learnt from the past.

“We’re tailored as a new style and model of NDIS provider and don’t have the big administrative buildings and staff of some other companies,” Naveen said.

“We’re learning from previous experience, trials, and mistakes; we’re something totally different in this field, and that’s our strength” Team Leader, Carmen Boye concluded.

For more information, call: 6360 1961 or go to: www.oasislivingsolutions.com.au/