Rebecca is the Community and Events Programme Manager at Te Omanga Hospice. Our club had worked with Rebecca as she organised the recent charity golf tournament and she gave an outline of what organising the tournament involved, of the wider work of Te Omanga and the need for funds. Rebecca was born in the Hutt Valley and was once a primary school teacher before she joined Te Omanga, and had an interest in the performing arts. In spite of this background she professed to be nervous as this was the first address of this nature she had given, but her concern was unmerited as she gave a very fluent and interesting account of the tournament's organisation and the wider issue of working with the community.
She was especially grateful for the help Brian and Jan had been in the organising committee. The one day golf tournament raised $75000 with the help of Jan and Brian, over one hundred volunteers on the day, and the sponsors. Golfing teams of four paid $600 to enter and enjoyed an excellent tournament, fine food from Brian Lummis, and an evening's entertainment. The other volunteers performed such tasks as putting up gazebos (and taking them down at the end), setting up the course, providing a sausage sizzle, acting as marshalls and running the evening auction. Overall the day was a great success financially for Te Omanga and enjoyably for the golfers.
Rebecca went on to explain the wider situation for Te Omanga. In the last twelve months one in every three people who died received support in some way from TOMH. 609 were full patients, at any one time up to 170 patients were being cared for. The youngest patient was 4 months, the oldest 107 years, the average age 70, and 60% died at home. 32% had a non-cancer diagnosis. Their nurses made 6020 home visits.
The direct work of Te Omanga also involves community care, education, primary medical treatment and physio-therapy. In addition there are five hundred volunteers maintaining and improving the gardens, running the shops, running street appeals, writing patient biographies, running fund raising activities and more. (The next street appeal will be on 17/18 May. Street appeals have normally raised about $30000). All these are vital because the government pays for only 50% of Te Omanga's annual costs. In future, projections for the Hutt Valley indicate an increase of 56% in primary palliative care involved deaths by 2036, and that 55% of deaths will be of people aged eighty five or older and will occur in aged care residential facilities. Thank you Rebecca. You were a delight to work with and we are proud to have been of assistance.