NZCT has awarded Hospice Taranaki $125,000 to support free end-of-life care services across Taranaki. Hospice Taranaki provides free care to all patients and their families, so that patients and their whãnau are able to focus on living every moment together.
Chief Executive Paul Lamb says, “Our hospice is the only provider of specialist palliative/end of life care to the 122,000 residents of Taranaki. Our services have been provided to our communities on a 24/7, anywhere, free of cost basis for over thirty years. We have an employed staff of about one hundred dedicated people for our care services and operate a six site charity retail group, supported by around 450 volunteers.”
“Hospice care is regarded as an holistic form of care encompassing patients and their families. We provide doctors, nurses, counsellors, social workers and spiritual advisors to join up a complete service tailored to an individual’s needs. These staff teams are supported by colleagues providing catering for in patients, day social programmes, education services to our community care partners and aged care facilities and a specialized team advising public health staff about best practice palliative care for hospital patients.”
“This year, we are facing a million-dollar shortfall between income and expenditure. This is due to a combination of steeply rising costs, flat line/decreased central government funding, and flat line/reduced charity shop income combining to place extreme pressure on our organisation as we face this $1,050,000 budget deficit to provide our community care services. We need to fundraise 55% of our operating expenses this year to attempt to balance our budgets.”
You matter because you are you. You matter to the last moment of your life, and we will do all we can, not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.
Dame Cicely Saunders 1918 - 2005 (founder of the modern Hospice movement)
“We are very grateful for the long term relationship we have enjoyed with NZCT and the fantastic response they have provided to our extraordinary request for help in our current circumstances. This support will help maintain our current nursing staff team numbers and sustain their work in providing community-based care in patients own homes.”
“Patients and their families tell us that having care provided in their chosen setting is so important to them as it provides them more choices to carry on with a normalcy of life in surroundings familiar to them, often with pets and other key factors of their lives near by as they journey through a life limiting illness.”
The care is for people whose illness is no longer curable, the goal is around providing quality of life, managing pain and symptoms.
Patients who have Hospice Taranaki involved in their care may have cancer or other life limiting illnesses (heart, lung or kidney failure or neurological diseases such as motor neurone disease), with a focus on ensuring in every way possible that a persons journey is experienced with comfort, care and dignity.
The aim of the specialist palliative care services provided by Hospice Taranaki is to support patients of all ages with a life-limiting illness, based on individual need and to optimise quality of life until death and bereavement. This support is achieved by assessing and addressing the physical, psychosocial, spiritual and cultural needs of the patient and their family/whānau. Support is also provided for the individual's family/whanau, throughout the illness and after death.
The comprehensive care is available both at our in-patient unit Te Rangimarie and in the community. Palliative care is provided in such a way as to meet the unique palliative care needs of individuals from all cultures, ethnic backgrounds, communities or groups. These include: Maori, Pacific People, Asian, people with disabilities and mental illness, the elderly, and those living in rural communities.
The services provided include support of the patient in the community, inpatient care, respite care, a 24hr advice service seven days a week, out patient clinics, day procedures, an activities-based day programme, social work services, family support, pastoral support and bereavement support. We also have an extensive range of equipment to assist patients who choose to remain in their own homes.
At Hospice Taranaki we embrace diversity of age, ethnicity, means, lifestyle or religion. Affirming life and offering dignity and expert care, acknowledging the uniqueness of each person and striving to work in partnership to meet patient and family needs.
Hospice Taranaki is a registered Charitable Trust, founded in 1992 and administered by a Board of Trustees.
