Joan Whiting trustees withdraw from project and slam public consultation process
The Joan Whiting Trust has withdrawn from the planning process for the integrated health project.
Trust chair Chris Mitson says that the latest plans for the rest-home component have been “shamefully butchered to cut costs”.
Mr Mitson says that the decision to withdraw means that nothing else changes for the Joan Whiting Rest Home.
“We will do our utmost to keep Joan Whiting open as long as possible. When the integrated facility is finished and when the top-up funds stop, the Joan Whiting Home will close.”
“Our professional staff – the people who really know about elder-care – are beyond dismay at the way they’ve been treated by the consultants in this process, to say nothing of the final outcome. As far as the rest home is concerned, the final plans bear virtually no resemblance to what’s been paraded before the public at open days, the website and the two-page supplement in The GB Weekly. The public consultation process now seems a complete sham.”
The Integrated Management Group (IMG) respects the decision by Joan Whiting trustees to withdraw from the process, says chair John Peters but says that rest-home facilities are still an integral component of the project.
“It’s their prerogative (to withdraw) as one of the current providers. It is unfortunate that their decision is accompanied by emotional comment – what we need now is pragmatism in terms of how we keep rest-home beds available in Golden Bay. I have asked to meet with the trustees, but have had no response as yet.”
Mr Mitson wanted to go back to his trustees and consult on changes to the plan but he says he was prevented from doing that.
The changes included reducing seven of the rest-home rooms to 15.7m² and the other 10 to 16.8m² . Another change involved the provision of shared ensuite facilities for 10 of the 17 rest-home rooms (that is a shared ensuite bathroom accessible from two rooms), leaving the other seven rooms with smaller individual ensuites.
Mr Peters explains: “Some of the registered nurses who will be overseeing rest-home care expressed a preference for larger shared ensuites, especially as it is anticipated that within a short time-frame some of these rooms will be home for continuing-care residents.”
The plans seen at the open day also had a separate dining room and a sitting room for rest-home residents. In the plan signed off by the IMG, these rooms are combined into one and moved into the middle of the rest-home zone into what Mr Peters describes as “enlarged central living/dining areas”
“There are also sitting bays, a separate sitting room and outside areas. We’ve also reduced office and consulting space.”
Mr Peters says that the IMG, with an abstention from Chris Mitson, has agreed to the revised plans as recommended by the Golden Bay Clinical Leadership Group for the Integrated Family Health Centre “on the basis of both functionality and affordability”.
“This followed both feedback from the community and a professionally led workshop where all service users made compromises to fit the budget available. The additional project costs the quantity surveyor identified were not related in the main to the facility but to the external costs of consents, compliance and roading for example. It’s common for development projects to go through several rounds of cost management.”
Jan Dahl is the Joan Whiting Rest Home nurse manager.
“I find the changes horrifying,” she says. “This is no longer a rest home, it’s a geriatric ward. It’s been designed from a hospital perspective for the benefit of the staff. If Golden Bay can only afford a geriatric ward in a hospital, then so be it. Why has it taken six years to inform us? Health planners must know what is possible. After all, one square metre equals so many dollars, doesn’t it? The nurses’ work station has disappeared from the rest-home area so there’s nowhere within the rest home for staff to position themselves to look after residents. No ears, no eyes, no overview. That’s dangerous, downright dangerous.”
The IMG will be looking at the implications of the trust’s decision to withdraw, but Mr Peters says its focus will remain on “keeping all existing services available, retaining health professionals and doing the best we can to achieve that with the money we have available”.
In his press release Mr Mitson refers to the IMG’s “soothing PR machine” and says, “The wider community has been kept completely in the dark about what’s really going on.”
The IMG refutes this by referring to a comment they attribute to MP Damien O’Connor, who apparently said that he had never seen such extensive public consultation on a project.
In his press release Mr Mitson also asks about a public meeting promised for July, and the fact that the public did not see the plans “before they were signed off with that hasty rubber stamp.”
Mr Peters says, “There’s a strong view in the community that there will come a time when we’ll get a new design and put it out for a public vote. That’s not going to happen. When the council built the library there was no vote about the way the rooms were designed. Public consultation does not equate to having all ideas adopted but being heard, considered and accepted or not, dependent on the ability to do so. Many ideas were directly in opposition to each other so both cannot be adopted. Other solutions must be and have been found in most instances.
“The rest of the IMG representatives believe we have done everything possible to keep the three organisations moving ahead together to progress this project. The issues Joan Whiting has are ones the IMG can’t solve because they make the project unaffordable. Some compromise has been experienced by all players - the most important fact is that the objectives of the project are still achieved – keeping rest-home care in the Bay, and retaining and attracting health professionals.”
Margaret Garthwaite, an associate of architects Peddle Thorp, is the health planner responsible for the facility project. She reacted to Wednesday’s front page article in The Nelson Mail saying, “It’s incorrect to say that input from the Joan Whiting people has been disregarded. Many of their views have been accepted and incorporated into planning eg no dead-ends, close proximity of lounge and dining for staff observation, no shared bathrooms where people have to leave their rooms to get showered, cleaned up etc. Some have not.
“The new total courtyard area is 360m2, a reduction of seven square metres overall. Neither of the new courtyard areas has a concrete wall to look out on. There are no concrete walls in the facility. All rooms have their own outdoor sitting area which will have a range of different ways of screening off for privacy. The 15.5m² figure quoted in that story is a bit misleading.” [the correct dimensions of all the rooms are shown in paragraph nine on this page. Ed.]
Mr Peters concludes: “This is an integrated facility, not a separate rest home within a larger amenity. All three services currently have a family environment and we believe that will continue at the new location. We believe the centre will be a safe, comfortable and happy environment for everyone who uses it. We continue to receive widespread expressions of support. We believe we have the majority of the community behind us and the opposition is sadly a self-serving effort by a few to try to derail the project.”
On a final note Mr Mitson says, “We do not intend to engage in debate over this decision but we will be happy to answer questions at our forthcoming annual general meeting.”
Neil Wilson
