Monday 29 April 2024Health news3 minutes to read
To be attributed to Andy Inder, Director Ageing Well – National Commissioning, Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora.
Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora has decided it will not reopen Ziman House, a 12-bed hospital-level aged residential care (ARC) facility that was closed in April 2022 in the West Coast township of Reefton.
We acknowledge this will be upsetting for Ziman House staff and Reefton residents, particularly because of previous reassurances that the facility will reopen when nursing staff are recruited. Health NZ has carefully considered the options before making this difficult decision, including Reefton community’s needs alongside our rural and ageing well strategies and direction.
Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that all levels of aged residential care at Ziman House are neither feasible nor sustainable from a workforce or a financial perspective for Health NZ. Ziman House is not fit-for-purpose as a modern ARC facility and the layout does not easily support the nursing model of care usually delivered in an ARC facility. It will require significant investment to improve Ziman House to appropriate standards, which we don’t believe is the best use of funding.
It had proved difficult to employ a sustainable nursing workforce in Reefton to ensure ongoing safe care for residents in Ziman House. While recruiting and retaining nurses has been improving, it continues to be challenging to recruit and retain suitably experienced ARC nurses and ARC clinical leads across the West Coast.
As far as costs, Ziman House beds cost four times the average cost of rest home level care and nearly three times the average cost of hospital level care, which is also unsustainable for Health NZ.
We are committed to ensuring Reefton – and all rural towns – have safe and sustainable services for older residents and their whānau to live well as they age.
There are alternative community models of care that have been working well in rural communities elsewhere in New Zealand, which we want to explore and bolster for Reefton – and we know that older people increasingly want to remain in their own homes as long as possible.
Currently, community service options for older people living in Reefton include:
We agreed today on how we would consult with the community in the coming weeks on options for new services to support older people in Reefton, including options like transport to the Westport rest home, transport for shopping, a community day activity programme (support for carers) as well as in-home respite support. Today’s meeting was difficult, however it does create certainty and we would like to thank the Reefton Health Action Group for their commitment to the community and interest in working through these options positively with us.
Ultimately, we want the community to be part of the solution and we will be setting up a range of public meetings to ensure that we can hear from the community as to their needs. This will enable us to build the right care framework for the town’s ageing population.
ENDS
Page last updated: 29 April 2024
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