Community business hub delivering
‘‘Over the years we have removed walls remodelled rooms to suit clients needs, and we still have a waiting list for new tenants."’’
The former Cambridge Maternity Hospital in Taylor St is still going strong.
Babies haven’t been delivered at the birthing unit for over 25 years, but the building still has that hospital feel as the unmistakable smell of food being prepared from the kitchen wafts down the long corridors.
Twenty five years later the Cambridge Health and Community Trust continue to deliver outcomes from the centre for its community.
As you wander down the hallways you see the organisations who tenant the many rooms some commercial operators like the catering company who use the kitchen and the many community groups who have made the old maternity hospital their base.
This month the trust members running the complex, purchased from the Waikato Area Health Board with public funds in 1992, have celebrated the centre’s 25th anniversary.
Rosemary Hill an original trustee from 1993 is still there today as chairperson.
She struggles to recall when she first took the chair but remembers the title in those days was ‘chairwoman’.
Many pre-school groups, Parents Centre, Cambridge Toy Library and the Montessori School operate in different parts of the building.
But it’s not just the young using the building Trust secretary Jenny Baker said, at the rear of the building is the Magnolia Lounge used weekly by age care providers Resthaven Rest Home for day care facilities for dementia patients and a day club for the public.
Across the path in part of the old nurses home Senior Net has its headquarters.
Trust secretary Jenny Baker has also been involved since 1994 has seen it all.
‘‘Over the years we have removed walls remodelled rooms to suit clients needs, and we still have a waiting list for new tenants.’’
The complex boasts four meeting rooms with the largest being the birthing room in a previous life has now been transformed into a modern meeting room with the latest IT, sound and visual facilities.