Hospice Tairawhiti Building Fund - Help us build a space to meet the growing needs of our community

For the past 25 years we have been operating out of a small building on the hospital grounds - a building that is no longer large enough to house our increasing staff numbers, does not have the space for patients and families to visit us, and more importantly, is restricting the potential to grow the services hospice could offer to the community.

We have had a 40% increase in referrals in the last five years and know from Ministry of Health predictions that the number of people requiring hospice services will greatly increase in coming years. To cope with the increased demand we will need to make some changes to the way we currently work and continue to upskill the generalist healthcare workforce.

We believe the way forward is to build a community hospice large enough so that we can invite patients to come to us when they are well enough. Our staff will continue to visit patients at home, but the less time they spend on the road, the more time they will have to help more families. A bonus is that patients will be able to meet and support each other, and we will be able to offer a greater range of therapies. Patients will be able to see a nurse or doctor in a clinic, take part in complementary therapy, join support groups, and actively participate in day programmes – most of which we have not been able to provide in our current building.

We do not plan to have an inpatient unit as we believe the majority of people want to be cared for in their own homes and that the population requiring palliative care in Tairawhiti isn’t yet big enough to require an inpatient unit. We feel it would be more beneficial to put our resources into supporting people to be cared for in the community, either at home or in Aged Residential Care. There may be a need for an inpatient unit in the future, and we would ensure there was room to extend our building should the need arise.

We want the hospice to be a building at the heart of our community, we want it to be visible and vibrant. Hospice is an organisation that celebrates life and we want our building to reflect that.

We have raised $2.3 million to date, thanks to $1 million from Eastland Community Trust, $300, 000 from NZ Community Trust and $1 million from our current fundraising endeavors. We have $800, 000 to go, any size contribution from our community will make a huge difference for us.

If you are an individual, group or organisation you can support our building fund by holding a fundraising event and donating the proceeds to the building project. For more information, visit our website.