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The Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy will officially open Tui House, the new $7.5 million hospice building in Warkworth, on Thursday, November 16.
The occasion will mark the end of an intensive and professional three-year fundraising campaign that has galvanised the community and demonstrated incredible generosity on the part of many individuals, from all walks of life.
Fundraising chair Wendy Hawkings says the people of the Warkworth district can be very proud of themselves.
“I think the Governor-General’s presence is in some way an acknowledgement of the huge community effort that went into making the vision a reality,” she says.
The beneficiaries of the project will be people in palliative care who wish to stay in their homes for as long as possible, as well as their families and carers, and hospice nurses, staff and volunteers. The building will provide the space to offer more services such as nurse-led clinics, day respite, day programmes and therapeutic treatments. It’s a big improvement on the former dairy factory houses, where on more than one occasion a nurse had to consult with a patient in the carpark because the patient couldn’t manage the steps.
Manager Kathryn Ashworth says most people want to spend the end of their lives at home with the people who matter most to them, and most can achieve this if they are supported by visits from nurses, counsellors and social workers.
“We want the hospice to be a building at the heart of our community, with a real sense of ownership by the locals and flexible spaces that anyone can use – for volunteer meetings, small fundraising events and special interest or business groups,” Kathryn says. “Hospice is an organisation that celebrates life and we want our building to reflect that.”
Because hospices receive no government funding for capital projects, the full cost of the new building and its fit-out fell on the local hospice.
Having paid $1.5 million for the land and accumulated some reserve funds, the campaign to raise the remaining $5 million was launched in July 2014.
“Some of the money came from trusts, but about 100 individual donors pledged almost $3 million to get the project started,” Kathryn says.
Construction started in May last year and was completed on time this month.
