After nearly 100 years of operation in the Upper Hutt
area, St Joseph’s Home of Compassion elder care facility has
announced its closure, which will be effective in four
months from today.
Across New Zealand, aged care
providers have been seriously impacted by the global nursing
shortage, with the New Zealand Nurses Organisation recently
stating that the health sector in New Zealand was more than
4000 nurses short.
St Joseph’s currently has 87 beds,
16 of which are dementia care, with the rest a mix of
elderly and hospital level care. To operate, the centre
requires 15 registered nurses to ensure, and provide,
appropriate safe care to our residents.
From before
the Covid outbreak, it has been increasingly challenging to
recruit and retain nurses and caregivers at the centre, and
the last six months have been especially
difficult.
‘Unfortunately, we can no longer staff our
home to the levels necessary to provide the quality and
safety of care that we all expect, and that they deserve’
said Dr Chris Gallavin, Tumu Whakarae – Co-Executive
director, of the Sisters of Compassion group.
‘We know
that we have been facing a nationwide problem for some time,
so over the last 3 years, we have been working as
innovatively and creatively as possible to address the
decline in staffing resources, not only of registered
nurses, but also of caregivers and support staff’, he
added.
‘We have advertised nationally and
internationally, working with agencies, exploring options
for staff, including delaying retirement, and even trying to
convince others to come out of retirement. But now we find
ourselves unable to staff the centre adequately’, explained
Dr Gallavin.
‘We are so sorry that it has come to
this’, said Dr Gallavin. ‘This is not a problem we are able
to fix by spending more but is a reflection of where our
health system is at’, he added.
‘It is a very sad day
for our residents, their whānau and families, our staff and
everyone in our community who has been involved in our
operations over many decades’, says Dr Gallavin.
‘I
appreciate this will come as a great shock and that it is a
blow to the community – again, I am very sorry for that’,
he said.
Throughout this time, St Joseph’s has been
constantly assisted by Te Whatu Ora, previously known as the
DHB, who have helped by providing relief staff when
possible. However, even with the ongoing help of Te Whatu
Ora, getting the necessary staff to continue operating has
not been possible.
The Home will not close overnight
but has committed to remain open for four months to help
with the transition of residents and staff.
Families
will be assisted in re-housing their loved ones through the
local Needs Assessment and Service Coordination (NASC)
organisation. ‘Residents and families will not be left
alone; we are here to work with them and Te Whatu Ora in
their ongoing care and accommodation’, said Dr
Gallavin.
This difficult and painful decision means
closure to a story that began on 19 February 1933, when a
home was first built in Upper Hutt, to replace a care home
run by the Sisters of Compassion in Buckle Street,
Wellington, which had been caring for the elderly and
disabled since 1901.
Since that time, St Joseph’s Home
of Compassion in Upper Hutt has been dedicated to providing
care for the elderly in need. Highly regarded for its level
of care and for accepting many people for whom no other
options existed, the centre opened a state-of-the-art 16-bed
dementia wing in 2009. The reconstructed elderly care wing,
the “Aubert wing”, opened in
2015.
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