A Queenstown trust is being set up to provide short-term overnight respite care for terminally and seriously ill patients.
Lions Club president Michael White, who chairs a steering group set up after he called a public meeting last year, said the Whakatipu Care Trust would aim to provide a community-funded facility somewhere in the Wakatipu Basin.
No palliative care was available in Queenstown, meaning those needing it often ended up in Invercargill.
Mr White said there were "many examples" in the community of people who needed a facility to give them a break when they were caring for pre- and terminally ill family members, which was not available locally.
"This facility would prevent the need for families to be separated by a two-hour drive to the nearest alternative."
Hospice Southland had bought a Frankton home which it would use for office accommodation and to host patients for consultations and day-time activities.
In its resource consent application, however, it stressed dying patients would not be staying there overnight.
But Mr White believed there was demand for an overnight care facility, where patients could stay, at most, four or five days at a time, which would give their carers a good break.
It would not just be for elderly patients, he suggested, citing the example of migrants who did not have extended families living here.
"You could have a couple from Brazil, one of them gets seriously ill, and they have two children as well.
"There’s nowhere to help them — their only facility at the moment is to go into one of the care homes, which is not ideal if you’re a young person."
Mr White believed it could start with two care suites alongside a communal family facility, and hospice nurses could supplement staff who would be employed.
No site had been chosen, he said, nor any consideration given to funding — "we’re in the very, very early stages".
The trustees would include representatives from the local Lions, Rotary and Altrusa clubs, supported by the Cancer Society and local GPs.
By Philip Chandler
