An exhausted Queenstown resident caring for her dying husband has called on the health minister to turn empty rooms in an unused wing at Frankton\u2019s Lakes District Hospital into a temporary hospice space.<\/p>\n
A former enrolled nurse, Rhonda Mabon, 72, said she told Health Minister Simeon Brown she was \u2018\u2018in desperate need of a break\u2019\u2019 to recharge so she could continue to be with her partner \u2018\u2018throughout this tragic journey we are now on\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Her husband, John Mabon, 75, has a rare brain disorder as well as aspiration pneumonia.<\/p>\n
He needed to be turned over in bed every two hours because he could not do it himself.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I\u2019m bloody well knackered,\u2019\u2019 Mrs Mabon said<\/p>\n
She could not leave the house for more than half an hour, she said.<\/p>\n
Aware of other local fulltime family caregivers, she said if her husband could have a week\u2019s hospice care it would be invaluable.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Respite is not a luxury, it is what allows carers to continue.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
There were great hospice nurses in Queenstown, but no hospice facility.<\/p>\n
Two or three rooms and maybe also a family room, in the former 36-room Lake Wakatipu Care Centre, which has been vacant for 18 months, would make \u2018\u2018a huge difference to people who find themselves in the same situation as we are now\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I read it\u2019s going to take a long time yet because the rooms need to be reconfigured and brought up to health standards … there were people in it two years ago, there was nothing wrong with it.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It probably just needs a good cleanup. It just needs to not sit empty for another two years.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
She told Mr Brown she was not asking for a new hospital or building.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018It\u2019s there already and there would be no shortage of volunteers to help with anything that may be needed for this to happen.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Another resident, Karina Reid, said her mother, Jean Young, 86, spent her last nine days at Lakes District Hospital, which her family was very grateful for.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018But the hospital wouldn\u2019t normally probably do it long-term and it depends how busy it is.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We had to be aware at some point we may be transferred into hospice care, somewhere.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Like Mrs Mabon, she thought some rooms in the adjacent former rest-home could also be used for hospice care.<\/p>\n
Wakatipu Care Trust chairman Michael White, whose trust has been campaigning for a local hospice and respite\/palliative care centre for many years, said he despaired at Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora over its apparent indecision over the future of the site.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018They\u2019re saying the rooms are not within code and they probably have to be knocked down \u2014 well, that happens when you leave rooms for 18 months doing nothing.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018If they were to make a decision and say we could have some of those rooms, I\u2019m sure we could bring them up to code.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
In a statement, Lakes District Hospital general manager Simon Donlevy said he was told the wing was not configured or at an appropriate standard to immediately place healthcare services in the building.<\/p>\n
To ensure the space could fit within the long-term health needs of the region, an assessment of the layout and infrastructure of the building was needed and while that happened HNZ was considering options for the space.<\/p>\n
Such options include an extended clinical space, further office space for local HNZ staff, or privately-run community health services.<\/p>\n
The statement was a nearly identical response to what was provided to Allied Media last April after inquiring about the future of the wing.<\/p>\n
The only new information was HNZ expected the clinical services planning work under way for the Central Lakes area would \u2018\u2018help to inform the future use of the space.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An exhausted Queenstown resident caring for her dying husband has called on the health minister to turn empty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-318769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318769","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=318769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}