The mission statement of Hospice EBOP is to provide excellent, compassionate, palliative care to our patients throughout the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
Palliative care is for people whose illness is no longer curable, our goal is around providing quality of life, managing pain and symptoms to enable people to live every moment in whatever way is important to them. Whilst physical needs like managing pain and symptoms are a priority, equal importance is placed on cultural, emotional, spiritual and social needs as the end-of-life approaches. Support is also provided for whānau both before and after the death of their loved one by our family support worker.
Our region spreads from Matata to Ruatoki to Te kaha and our clinical team (palliative care nurses and family support worker) sees patients in their own home or other place of their choice. In the past 12 months our clinical team travelled a total of 84,735Km and performed 2,209 patient visits.
Hospice EBOP also provides loan equipment, such as hospital beds, La-Z-boy chairs, wheelchairs etc to our patients to help make it easier for their loved ones to care for them at home. There is a 24/7 support line that patients and their whanau can call on.
The BOPDHB partially funds our palliative care service, but we must fundraise and apply for grants to cover the remainder of our costs, which is approx. $500,000 annually. Our Hospice shops are vital for raising some of these required funds.
Like all other shops, the Hospice shop has the usual overheads of rent and bills to be paid. Hospice EBOP employs shop managers to over-see the day to day running of the shops and we operate a van to pick up and deliver large items for the shop.
At our Hospice shops in Whakatane, Kawerau and Opotiki, we are very lucky and very grateful to receive generous donations from our communities.
We also rely on our wonderful volunteers to help us run the shops, sort through the donations and keep our shelves fully stocked. In the past 12 months, our 125 valued volunteers have donated 12,263 Volunteer hours.
Because of these donations and volunteers, we are able to maximize the profits in our shops so that as much money as possible can go back into helping fund our palliative care service, which we offer free to our Eastern Bay of Plenty community.
If you are interested in volunteering in one of our Hospice shops or in our delivery van, please contact our office on 07 307 2244 or talk with the relevant shop manager.