Heartfelt plea to reopen rest home from those affected
A man whose wife was “forcibly removed” from a Reefton rest home says he went from seeing her for up to six hours a day to six hours a week.
Peter Short’s wife, Dawn, died six months after she was moved from Reefton to Greymouth two years ago. He is one of a group of residents calling for the reopening of Reefton’s Ziman House in a video made by the Reefton Hospital Action Group.
Short said his wife had been a resident of Ziman House for almost eight years when it was “temporarily” closed due to staff shortages in February 2022. Its 10 residents were relocated and the community was told it would reopen in four months but more than two years later it is refurbished, heated and cleaned, but still closed.
Short said he was sad when his wife was removed – against their will – to Greymouth.
“Personally I went from being able to see Dawn from four to six hours a day to four to six hours a week which was a bit of a struggle.”
He had to travel to Greymouth, with the help of funded transport but had to cut some of his visits shorter than he would have liked in the lead up to her death.
“There’s a need for a facility in the area for elderly people and their families when you come to the end of your life,” he said.
Reefton woman Lanie Moore said her aunt Zelda Curtis was 88 when she was moved by ambulance to Christchurch from Ziman House and died 18 months later.
She said her aunt would have wanted to die in Reefton and she believed going from being among friends to strangers accelerated her aunt’s decline.
“She lived in Reefton all her life and worked as a nurse at the hospital so the nurses looking after her were some of her colleagues and they showed her a lot of love,” she said.
Reefton Hospital Action Group spokesperson Helen Bollinger said the group had heard heart-breaking stories from several locals affected by the closure which was undertaken at short-notice with no consultation.
There were 12 community members who would soon need residential care, but did not want to leave the town, she said.
She said the community had been told the facility would reopen if five and a half full-time equivalent nurses could be recruited. However, she could not see any advertising for Reefton staff on the health recruitment website.
She said the community deserved more information from Te Whatu Ora about its plans for a facility that was being wasted.
Health NZ Te Whatu Ora National director commissioning Abbe Anderson said it was currently considering the future of Ziman House.
“We will share further details with the community as soon as possible.”