Page 12 - TOH_Making a difference 2023-2024

CLINICAL
SERVICES
INPATIENT AND COMMUNITY NURSING
Our Community Palliative Care team enables patients with specialist palliative care needs to be cared for at home, where they often feel most comfortable. The team maintains a close working relationship with other health professionals involved in a patient’s care, with in-person nursing and medical support available 7 days a week, alongside 24-hour phone support.
For patients under the Hospice programme who require a level of assessment and symptom control that cannot be managed at home, our Inpatient Unit (IPU) service at the Hospice is available. Our IPU is staffed by specialist registered nurses, doctors, and palliative care assistants, along with our Family Support team that comprises allied health practitioners and therapists. This team provides 24hr palliative care.
We continue to face challenges with nursing shortages in our Clinical team. This challenge is a global, national and local issue and is especially prominent for specialist services. We have engaged in innovative measures to attract new talent and increase our Nursing team. One initiative was to host a Nurse Open Day for registered nurses interested in working in specialist palliative care. The event had a positive turnout, providing attendees with the opportunity to learn about our hospice, meet current staff members, and ask any questions they had.
WAIRARAPA PALLIATIVE CARE
One of the ways that Te Omanga Hospice addresses inequities in access to specialist palliative care is through our medical consultancy service to doctors and nurse practitioners in the Wairarapa. Our team works alongside Kahukura, the Wairarapa Palliative Care Service.
Each week, one of our doctors travels to the Wairarapa to see patients in their own homes, including rural properties, Aged Residential Care facilities and Masterton Hospital. Our Medical team is also on call 24/7 for all Wairarapa general practitioners, nurse practitioners and hospital doctors for specialist advice on their patients’ palliative care needs.
OUR CLINICAL TEAM MADE
VISITS TO PATIENTS IN THE COMMUNITY
We have developed a positive relationship with a recruitment agency and have successfully recruited several experienced international palliative care nurses. This has not only boosted our Nursing team but added diversity to our team. We are increasing our nursing pipeline through the presence at Community and Primary Health Providers information sessions for nursing graduates, mentoring 3rd year nursing students on nine-week clinical placements and nurturing our relationships with Bachelor of Nursing programmes.
12
THERE WERE
THE AVERAGE LENGTH OF STAY WAS
143 ADMISSIONS
9 DAYS
TO OUR INPATIENT UNIT
“Our service sometimes includes visiting some very remote parts of the Wairarapa. I have been to Riversdale a couple of times over the years, but the most remote was Tora. I met the Wairarapa Specialist Palliative Care Nurse in Martinborough and together we drove almost an hour over a terrible road to get to the patient’s home right on the coast road. By chance I had the Rural Hospital Medicine Registrar with me, which was perfect since his job in future will be to deliver palliative care in similar remote locations. We were able to arrange things for this patient and his family so that the patient died peacefully, overlooking the ocean, according to their wishes.”
- Hospice Medical Director.
WE PROVIDED ADVICE AND SUPPORT TO THE WAIRARAPA PALLIATIVE CARE SERVICE FOR
59 PATIENTS AND THEIR WHĀNAU