You know you have entered the parallel universe of residential aged care when you find yourself saying, “Just to clarify, the deposit for the room is $1.95m, and the charges will be about $10,000 a month?”

“That’s correct,” the kindly sales agent replies.

Sure, it’s Sydney’s eastern suburbs, but that is a lot of money for a 20 sq metre room – almost double the median price for a one-bedroom apartment in the same suburb.

“In the brochure there are rooms for $1.25m, are they available?” you ask.

“No, and when the current residents leave [die] they will be renovated, with new bathrooms.”

“I guess that will make them more expensive?” you speculate.

“Yes, they will be $1.65m.”

Even with imported marble that seems excessive. Like all the privatised care services, the business of aged care is about property, cheap labour and public money.

But when your loved one has been deteriorating in a hospital bed for eight months without any therapies, eating hospital food on plastic plates, with only a car park to walk around, you are desperate and say yes, hoping against hope that another option will emerge.

In my case it did, and a few days later a 16 sq metre room with a big window in a well-run little centre........

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