Watson said the village would be \u201ca bit quirky\u201d, but aimed to replicate home life and everyday tasks as much as possible. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople with dementia come into care because they can\u2019t be at home by themselves for varying reasons, but their life kind of stops.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watson said the team behind the home had researched Rotorua and Melbourne facilities as they didn\u2019t want that to be the case at Mt Herbert House.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Rotorua, they do a similar Scandinavian type model where they live in houses and everyday is part of their programme, living what would be for us a normal life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey get up, they make their bed, they do their tasks for the day, they go out and do gardening and cooking … so we have kind of based it on that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Each home has four bedrooms, a kitchenette to make hot drinks and toast and a microwave, a lounge space and a bathroom. <\/p>\n
The hub, which includes a dining room, a book nook, a shop and a kitchen was for shared activities, Watson said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happening in the community can happen here too.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said they had created an on-site grocery store so residents can shop to buy snacks or dinner ingredients with \u201cvillage money\u201d.<\/p>\n
Donna Watson said they chose items such as an old-fashioned till to reflect the generation their residents would have grown up in. <\/p>\n
There was also an old-fashioned till, a sewing table that acted as the counter top and a telephone box to replicate a generation many would have grown up in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can go and get the ingredients with their care companions … who will walk alongside them and then they can all do the cooking together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watson said they would even be able to do gardening as they lived in \u201clittle wee houses as opposed to a ward\u201d.<\/p>\n
‘Forget Me Not’ residents will be able to use village money to replicate grocery shopping at an onsite grocery store. <\/p>\n
She said it was important to offer the \u201cvillagers\u201d dignity and routine and the only secured part of the village was the perimeter fence. <\/p>\n
Watson said the homely spaces were designed to be reflective of the time a villager was used to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got houses with different scenes, so the research was as people are growing up that\u2019s how they remember their life, more so than what it was just prior to admission.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike if they grew up and were rural it would be quite a rural environment, so we have modified some of the houses so they look quite different in the furnishings.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said they hoped to accommodate most backgrounds and upbringings to ensure villagers lived a happy lifestyle. <\/p>\n
The concept included more old-fashioned activities with the residents, including gumboot throwing and horseshoes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe ladies of that era were probably inside cooking, and the men were outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watson said it would be the first time they would be housing people who needed a secure unit, as previously they had only rest home and hospital-level care.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t cater to psycho-geriatric, but it does from stage three, and they have to be signed off as needing a secure environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foley said he was privileged to open the new facility. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s impressive to see the effort that has been put in, not just in the physical aspects but also the thought that\u2019s gone into making this a safe, comfortable space for the residents.\u201d <\/p>\n
Michaela Gower joined Hawke\u2019s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke\u2019s Bay news and loves sharing stories about farming and rural communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watson said the village would be \u201ca bit quirky\u201d, but aimed to replicate home life and everyday tasks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,1561,1853,5261,799,11163,21436,1976,51030,302,300,111,43,139,69,90,91738,5429,6293,530,1326,14040,2735,1361,223,810,23534,102],"class_list":["post-136822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-bay","tag-central","tag-currency","tag-dementia","tag-facility","tag-grocery","tag-hawkes","tag-includes","tag-its","tag-money","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-onsite","tag-own","tag-patients","tag-residents","tag-shop","tag-spend","tag-store","tag-that","tag-the","tag-up","tag-village","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}