Our care in the community
Our care in the community
“Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe me maunga teitei.
Seek the treasure you value most dearly: if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.”
This whakataukī (proverb) is about aiming high and being persistent and tenacious about reaching your goal. It is commonly used to stress the importance of education. At Cranford we find that life is the greatest teacher of all. We enter this world on our own, we leave on our own. But while in our service we will try to make your life what you want it to be.
Our past year from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022 was a time of learning to meet and respond to the ever-present needs and challenges facing Cranford Hospice.
The peak of the COVID-19 outbreak coincided with the winter influenza season and the whole health system was pushed to its very limits. Our team once again showed their commitment to providing the very best palliative care to our clients. This was done despite juggling their own ill heath, the ill health of their colleagues and often of their own whānau too. It’s fair to say that our workforce was stretched to the limit at times.
That our staff continued to meet Cranford’s goals speaks volumes and is something that the Board is very proud of. They lived the Cranford vision and values of helping people to make the most of the time they have left.
Our volunteers are our gems in the crown of Cranford. They work across all parts of the organisation, from the retail stores to the inpatient unit, to gardening, life story writing, governance and beyond. Volunteers bring an amazing amount of aroha and heart to the thousands of hours of unpaid work they contribute every year and really help to connect Cranford to our community.
Without their service Cranford would have to bow to that “lofty mountain”.
As the year drew to a close, we did not realise that it would be our final one with our friend and colleague, trustee Pat Turley. Pat was a greatly admired and very capable trustee and is sorely missed by the Board and staff following his sudden death. Pat’s contribution to Cranford, and especially his expertise in and commitment to the new build at Chesterhope, was immense and we will find an appropriate way to honour his memory at our new site.
In the last year our teams made 32,998 contacts to support 990 people living with palliative care needs in Hawke’s Bay, providing care to around 167 people at any one time. We are seeing an increasing complexity in the needs of people who receive our services, and in many cases, decreased resilience and resources of family members and carers who may be struggling with financial, employment and mental health concerns in addition to the emotional load of caring for a loved one who is dying.
The COVID-19 pandemic and response has really highlighted the inequalities that exist in Aotearoa New Zealand and Cranford welcomes the health reforms which flow from the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act and the increased focus on equity. At the heart of our philosophy is patient and whānau centred care. We continue to seek to understand what matters most to each individual and focus on the patient and their carers, rather than their illness. We continue to provide excellent clinical and holistic care and support under the Te Whare Tapa Whā model to patients and whānau at no charge to the service user.
Cranford Hospice is only able to provide this level of free-to-user care because of the support that we receive from the wider community. 43% of the funding required to meet the costs of providing
services are raised from generous individuals, philanthropic and charitable trusts, our retail stores, bequests and a large number of events that are held on our behalf. This year saw some of those events impacted by COVID, but we have been overwhelmed with the generosity of our community who have continued to support us and extend a heartfelt thank you to those donors and benefactors. Quite simply, we could not do what we do without your contributions.
The demand and need for our services are increasing, and we are not immune from the rising costs of just about everything. Our financial result for the year ending 30 June 2022 shows a small surplus which was due to a combination of careful financial management and an unsustainable number of staff vacancies.
Looking forward to the future, as we attempt to fill those vacancies and meet the increasing needs of our ageing population, we will be faced with the dilemma of budgeting to either use some of our reserves or to review our service offerings.
But despite that, we look forward to the changes ahead, with a new CEO joining us in early 2023, COVID hopefully receding from focus and significant momentum building towards creating the new home for Cranford Hospice at the fabulous site at Chesterhope.
Together we’d like to thank Janice Byford-Jones for her amazing leadership and stewardship of Cranford over the past seven years as our inaugural Chief Executive, and the members of the Executive Leadership Team and our staff and volunteers for continuing to go the extra mile for our patients, their whānau and their colleagues.
We also extend our gratitude to our Trustees and the Trustees of the Cranford Hospice Foundation who volunteer to provide such excellent governance and support to the operational team.
He waka eke noa
We are all in this together
Andrea Jopling Frané Rosandich
Interim CEO Chair
Please click on the link below to read the full Annual Report for the Financial Year 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022.