Farmers dig deep in support of elderly care
Matamata’s farming community has been asked to help support the New Wing Project at Pohlen Hospital. Pohlen Foundation Trust secretary Judith Challis explains why
Pohlen Foundation Trust held an evening recently for our local farming community, aptly named ‘‘Beefing up Pohlen’’.
At this function we were fortunate to have Sir Henry Van der Heyden and Sir Dryden Spring as guests.
The aim of this event was to make our farming community aware of the future healthcare requirements of our rapidly aging community and to ask for financial support for the New Wing Project which will address this need.
Though Sir Henry lives outside the Pohlen support area, he was prepared to write out a cheque for $1500 to assist with the construc- tion of the new wing at Pohlen.
Sir Henry had toured the hospital earlier in the day and reiterated the point that indeed there is nothing quite like Pohlen anywhere else in rural New Zealand.
He was impressed with the range of care provided within the complex, from the doctors at one end through to maternity at the other, not to mention the standard of the facilities and the vision we have for the delivery of our community’s health care.
Sir Dryden mentioned that it was not until you need Pohlen that you realise what a jewel we have here in Matamata.
Whether you need the care yourself, or someone close to you requires care, you are still amongst family and friends and not having to deal with the stress of travelling out of town.
In order to ensure that Pohlen Hospital has the capacity to meet increasing levels of demand we need to start building soon , and to do that we need additional capital to fund that building.
In time all sectors of the community will be asked to help if they can.
To date the support we have received for the New Wing Project has been fantastic.
After 18 months we are just about halfway through in terms of capital works and the fundraising required.
Why do we need to fundraise? The hospital is a charitable trust. It is owned by our community and administered by representatives of our community.
Pohlen Foundation Trust is extremely grateful for the support of Grant Wills, David Gasquoine, Stew Wadey and Tony Wilding, not to mention Elders and RD1, and Swaps for their collective support for the ‘‘Beefing up Pohlen’’ initiative.