Meeting community need

By Petrina Wright | Posted: Sunday July 14, 2024

Community support is needed to help fund plans to create six additional much-needed beds for the most vulnerable of Southland’s elderly population as part of an expansion and upgrade of Peacehaven’s Iona dementia care unit.

“With an aging population and average age expectancy continuing to rise, demand for dementia level care is increasing in terms of demand and complexity,” Presbyterian Support Southland (PSS) chief executive Matt Russell said.

“It is critical that as a region we are poised to respond to this challenge and ensure Southland is able to care for its residents now and into the future.”

The project, expected to cost about $386,000 excl GST, involves creating the six additional beds by repurposing office and storeroom space within the existing building footprint.

The project also includes fire safety compliance work, equipping and furnishing each new room, creating a new nurse station and nurse call system and refreshing the lounge and kitchen.

PSS operates the Enliven Iona Dementia Care Unit at Peacehaven Village in Invercargill. The unit has two separate wings, one with 20 beds for less severely impacted dementia patients (known as D3), and the other with 20 beds for those requiring specialised hospital-level care (known as D6 psychogeriatric care). D6 is the highest level of dementia care available in New Zealand.

PSS is the sole provider of psychogeriatric care in Southland. Care is also provided to people from the Whakatipu Basin, Wanaka and Central Otago areas, most of whom were referred when their dementia advances.

Matt said due to a lack of D6 beds in Southland, there were times when residents had to leave the region while they waited for a space to become available in Iona. The nearest D6 facility to Invercargill is in Dunedin.

“When these very vulnerable residents needed to leave the region for D6 level of care it creates a huge amount of stress and anxiety for the residents and their families.”

Matt said although the Iona project was modest, it would increase the number of D6 beds in Southland by 25%.

The project would be funded with a combination of support from individuals, community and external funders and donors, with any funding shortfall met from PSS Enliven operating budgets.

Matt said private aged care providers like PSS did not receive government funding for capital expenditure projects, so they needed to seek support from external funders to help finance capital improvement work in their care homes.

“As a charitable trust, our funds for capital development projects are extremely stretched.”

The project is expected to start later this year.

If you wish to support the Iona D6 project, you can donate online at pss.org.nz/get-involved/donate or email fundraising@pss.org.nz.