Hospice Southland’s spent a seven-figure sum buying a Queenstown property, but won’t be using it for a hospice.
The organisation, which provides free palliative care to Southland and Whakatipu patients with life-limiting illnesses, this year bought a three-bedroom home in Frankton’s Yewlett Crescent for $1,545,000.
It’s lodged a resource consent application to allow it to be used for community activities.
It plans converting the bedrooms into office space for its two to three local part-time workers.
And it would host ‘‘low-key’’ activities such as week ly grief meetings, monthly meals and fun activities for visiting patients, weekly clinical meetings and three remembrance services a year.
Before and/or after meetings with their doctor/nurse, patients might spend time relaxing, watching TV, or undertaking quiet activities.
The house would also be let out to community groups once or twice a month.
No gathering would have more than 25 people.
The application says Whakatipu patients in the final stage of their lives are usually in their own home or in hospital.
CEO Dr Flora Gilkison says she’s excited over what the premises will be able to provide, but doesn’t want to comment till they’re through the consent process.
Meanwhile, Queenstown Lions Club president Michael White, who’s been pushing for a local hospice facility for the past year, says while broadly supporting the proposal, it ‘‘does not go close to what we believe needs to be provided in respect of palliative care in the Whakatipu Basin’’.
‘‘We are developing a strategy to achieve this’’, which he’ll release soon, he says.
