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The brand-new dementia unit.
It has been a big job for a committee of six managing the project on top of their day jobs. Pictured, trust chair Graham Slatter.
Riverview Rest Home in Maungaturoto is expecting to open its newly built dementia unit at the end of July.
It is a big moment for the Maungaturoto Community Charitable Trust, which has been working on the project since 2015.
Chair Graham Slatter says designing and managing the construction of a building that caters for the needs of people with dementia has been a learning process.
Originally, the building was rectangular, but the trust learned that dementia sufferers struggle with hard angles.
“They tend go around in circles and get stopped in their tracks by corners.
So we’ve designed a circular hallway to be a circuit for them to be able to walk around.”
Doors and walls have also been colour-coded, making navigation easier. For example, doors that lead to bathrooms have been painted blue, to match blue walls inside the bathroom, so that residents can navigate by association.
Similarly, bedroom doors are a darker shade of white to differentiate from the lightly coloured hallway. Doors that lead to service areas blend into the colour of wall, indicating they are not accessible.
Completion of the dementia unit is stage one of the overall project. Stage two will include another eight beds for the growing rest home, while stage three will be a facility for 24/7 hospital care.
Graham says the new unit means that people living in the rest home who develop dementia and might otherwise have been forced to move away can be transferred down the hall.
“With dementia, you try to keep people in the same place as long as possible, because it’s a shock for them to move.”
The Maungaturoto community has been fundraising since 2015 and raised $610,000.
The concrete slab for the unit first went down in 2016, but the project was put on pause because the trust found it wasn’t eligible for any grants.
Graham says it was just fortunate that when Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund became available, the project was shovel-ready.
“I had a coffee with Shane Jones in Ruawai and said if we could get $600,000 we would be prepared to borrow the rest. I never in my dreams thought we would get the full $1.8 million,” he says.
Almost 70,000 Kiwis live with dementia. There are 170 dementia beds in Northland and 482 beds in the Waitemata District Health Board area.
