Hospice funding cuts add to a family’s pain
I have been following the reporting around the situation at Mossbrae rest-home.
It is of course, unfortunately, all too common in residential care facilities that there is short staffing and less than ideal care, accordingly.
I think it is well known that this is a funding issue of long standing, and a real indictment of the lack of value placed on elderly and/or disabled members of our society.
What was not clear in the coverage of the unhappiness of family about the palliative care received by an elderly man was that this gentleman was receiving this care in a rest-home facility as the Otago Community Hospice is very limited in its provision of inpatient care these days.
Six years ago a family member, with a terminal condition and under Hospice care, needed respite care, which was provided at a Dunedin rest-home (not Mossbrae), and then in the last two weeks of their life, at another Dunedin rest-home.
This care we discovered, which used to be provided in house, is now "outsourced" to the resthomes. Inpatient admission to Hospice is now only in the literal final days or if a medication review is required.
I know this is due to the funding situation at Hospice, only half of their funding being provided by government — a shocking state of affairs.
However, resthomes are not set up to provide such care and most of the staff do not have the specialist training to provide it.
I am writing not to criticise or attack anybody, but feel it is important that this situation is known.
Sandra Buchanan
Port Chalmers
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Disappearing act
Former mayor Aaron Hawkins has alleged that successful Dunedin City Council by-election candidate Jo Galer claimed that planned budgets for South Dunedin work had disappeared from council’s 2021 10-year plan.
Ms Galer (ODT 2.5.26) actually noted that works — not budgets — had disappeared from the plan. She was correct. The 2021 plan essentially only specified maintaining the status quo.
It seems that Mr Hawkins erroneously took an electoral opportunity to express umbrage at a statement that was never made. In the meantime, budgets have persisted meaninglessly, because no capital works have been carried out.
Watch the tape
Last week the South Dunedin Storm Water Justice Group was sitting in front of the DCC submitting on misinformation they had been giving to the public re the South Dunedin flooding.
We deliberately did not mention a past mayor standing for council in the by-election, not wanting to invoke any criticism of bias. To then have this same former mayor come out and say that Ms Galer had given false information to the public and thus gained the seat was outrageous.
His interpretation of the statement Ms Galer made was totally wrong. The 2017 Opus consultants stormwater upgrade plan did disappear from the 2018 long-term plan as she said. The $35 million funding was still included in the next 10-year plan but in a budget called "flood alleviation". Not a dollar of this money has been spent on upgrading or renewing the infrastructure to keep South Dunedin dry.
Those interested in viewing our submission to council can view it on You Tube. Aaron Hawkins is advised to do so.
Ease off the gas pedal on local govt reforms
Recently, ministers Chris Bishop and Simon Watts announced that the government had given local councils three months to come up with amalgamation plans.
It has been 37 years since the fourth Labour government’s local government reforms in 1989.
That reduced the number of local bodies from 850 to 86 entities and created the current two-tier structure of regional and district councils.
While merging councils would consolidate resources and hopefully lower rates, potential problems include the reduction of local decision-making and the loss of institutional knowledge from restructuring.
Two issues I have with the government’s proposed reforms are the exclusion of regional councils from the consultation process and the three-month timeframe.
Regional councils manage public transportation, natural resources and relations with mana whenua.
Given that the government’s proposed local government reforms will reverberate for decades, we need to give local and regional councils the time to get it right so that the new unitary authorities stand the test time.
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