We had our Annual General Meeting last month, it's been a busy year for Hospice. Looking at the 2022/2023 year in review the statistics are interesting. 

Our nurses work both in the Community and in the Inpatient Unit. The Community Nurses made 2,729 visits in the year.

These range from visits to Queenstown, Te Anau, Riverton, Winton, Gore, and Tapanui then down to Invercargill and across to Stewart Island Rakiura.

They also made over 5,500 phone calls in the year. 

Hospice Southland's Volunteer Coordinator Toni Eade. Photo: Supplied

Our doctors have been busy as well with a daily Ward Round, and the equivalent of at least one visit in the community every day – often having to drive with a nurse for 2 hours just to get to the patient.

Telehealth is useful but when you are a palliative patient and entering your last days of life it's good to actually have a doctor visit. 

Our Inpatient Unit had an occupancy of 62%, this was up from the year before.

It varies from being full to some days no patients. 

Our Patient and Family Support team gave many hours of bereavement support and helping sort out patient shifts to aged residential care when the time is right.

We had four Remembrance services, three Caregivers courses and three Journey with Grief courses, plus lots of meetings for a cuppa and a chat. 

Last year our patient numbers were almost 400 but this year it looks as though it will be almost double.

70% of our patients have cancer-related conditions and the other 30% are usually chest and lung- related. 

Hospice Southland receptionist Nikki Steyn. Photo: Supplied

HOW DO WE DO ALL THIS TO ENSURE OUR CARE IS FREE TO PATIENTS, THEIR FAMILIES AND WHANAU

We have 81 staff, most not full time, 8 shops who earned over $2.5 million. 37,700 volunteer hours which is almost 151 hours a day and if you converted to a wage using the Living Wage equates to almost $ 1 million.

This is a fantastic effort by our community to support us.

Plus donations of over $500,000 and grants of $70,000.

We depend so much on our community support – you are marvellous.

We could not do it without you. 

The government also contributed over $2.8 million about 45% of what we need, and for which we are very grateful. 

It’s a big business and we are absolutely committed to providing the best possible service at no charge to our patients and their families.

It really is all about Living Every Moment