New site for Lake Taupo Hospice thanks to Izard generosity

After a long and comprehensive search the Lake Taupo Hospice Trust can confirm it has found a new spacious site for Taupo’s hospice.

Trust chairman Alan Vane says the Trust is “relieved and ecstatic” to have received funding from Izard Investments Limited to enable it to buy and remodel the well-known Stevenson family property at 29 Huka Falls Road. He believes the new site will future-proof the hospice’s services which are already under huge pressure.

For the past 10 years the hospice has been operating out of Sunset Street in Hilltop but the existing facilities have become too small to adequately cope with growing demand for daytime palliative care services.

The new 3.7 hectare property (or 9.29 acres) comes with a large Hinuera Stone home as well as a second ‘caretaker’s residence’.

“It’s no secret that the Lake Taupo Hospice Development Trust has been searching for a new hospice site for more than two years, with much of what we’ve seen being unsuitable. The task of acquiring new premises has proved exhausting and exasperating.

“The Huka Falls Road property is absolutely perfect for us and importantly will fit in well with the surrounding residential area. We will be quietly blending in and we’re well back from any boundaries,” says Mr Vane.

Mr Vane said this significant purchase has only been made possible thanks to a private benefactor, Izard Investments Limited - the directors of which are Taupo residents Richard and Patience Izard.

“We would never have been able to do this without Richard and Patience Izard. The Lake Taupo Hospice Trust is forever indebted to the generosity of Izard Investments Limited and subsequently we will ensure the new property acknowledges Richard and Patience Izard in perpetuity.”

Mr Izard says “We are delighted to help secure this property and ensure all the Hospice’s growing needs are well met. It’s a wonderful organisation and provides an invaluable service to the wider Taupo community. We couldn’t be happier with the outcome.”

The Lake Taupo Hospice Trust has a Lakes DHB contract to provide community palliative day services in the Taupo district. It does not operate as an in-patient residential care facility. Rather it offers community services such as community nursing services, social work, education, bereavement support, and massage as well as 24 hour palliative care visiting patients in their own homes. At any one time the hospice visits approximately 70 out-patients with a doubling of numbers expected in the next decade alone.

Mr Vane says the facility at Huka Falls Road will provide ample space and flexibility for future expansion of those community services as demand grows.

“This move and these facilities will to a considerable degree future proof us and the services we provide to the Taupo community. Demand for hospice services has grown over the last 10 years as Taupo has grown, and will continue to grow as baby boomers, in particular, start requiring hospice services in greater and greater numbers.”

Mr Vane says the open space nature of the Huka Falls Road site fits in very well with the hospice ethos of providing a place of peace and serenity.

The property has been purchased from Norma Stevenson who has been a long-time supporter of Lake Taupo Hospice.

Settlement of the sale and purchase for the new Huka Falls Road site is scheduled for next month – May. Some work will then be required, partly to meet resource consent conditions and partly to meet hospice needs, which will also be funded by Izard Investments Limited. The hospice’s physical move from Sunset Street is likely to be around early 2016.

Suzie Kuper the Clinical Services Manager of Lake Taupo Hospice is also delighted with the move and is actively involved in some remodelling plans to ensure the facilities meet the clinical needs of her team of full and part-time nursing and administration staff, volunteers, and patients.

Impressively, the provision of hospice services to the Taupo community involves approximately 250 volunteers, and there are many more active and regular supporters.

Mr Vane says the wider Taupo community has been hugely supportive since the trust was established 30 years ago. However he says it is important to remember that the funding received for this purchase is of a purely capital nature and that plugging operational funding shortfalls is an ongoing annual challenge in the ever increasingly competitive world of charity.

“The Lakes DHB only funds approximately 50% of Lake Taupo Hospice operational costs, leaving an unfunded shortfall of approximately 50% which currently equates to approximately $500,000 per annum – which has to be raised in the Taupo district. That annual funding shortfall is likely to grow over the next decade as services expand to cater for the growing numbers of baby boomers needing palliative care services.”

A large proportion of the operational shortfall is currently met by revenue from the Taupo and Turangi hospice shops. Other revenue comes from events and activities organised by hospice’s events committee and from community fundraising activities, donations, bequests, and securing grants - overseen by the hospice’s Fundraising & Promotions manager Leanne Vlaanderen.

“We all know local demand for our services is set to increase significantly over the next decade and consequently, we need to be ready for it. The purchase of 29 Huka Falls Road gives us not only more space but more confidence as we move forward to meet the growth challenges in our community.

“We are so grateful to have received the Izard donations to secure and remodel this property. However the huge job of annual fundraising remains more important than ever given the tidal wave of demand that’s coming at us,” says Alan Vane.

www.laketaupohospice.co.nz

ENDS

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