Ginny has been the CEO of the Otago Community Hospice for fifteen years.  She is from Dunedin, has held many positions in the health services and is a member of Rotary. Rather than give a formal presentation Ginny opted to have an interactive discussion with members. Ginny sought questions and comments from members and used these to dispel some of the myths around the hospice service.
To begin, in answer to a question about the average time a person is in the hospice, Ginny explained that the building is only a small part of the service.  Currently the hospice is supporting about two hundred and fifty patients of whom only two are in the unit.  The focus of the hospice is to support people with terminal illness to live and die well.  Ginny said that people prefer to be in their home for care and to die.  The service is about supporting people’s mental wellbeing, their spiritual health, their physical health and family wellbeing.  Most of the work is about visiting and talking to people in their own homes.
The turnover for the hospice is around $7m, of which nearly 60% comes from government funding and the balance from hospice shops, donations, events and grants.  This year the shops closed for three weeks due to covid leaving a shortfall in this year’s funding.  Ginny suggested that anyone wishing to help could via the “give a little” page.  Whilst the hospice benefits from government funding the organisation prefers to be independent so that it can provide a service based on its values and choices.
The hospice movement is anti-euthanasia.  Ginny indicated that fundamentally the hospice and palliative care is to neither hasten nor postpone the natural progression of death.  She says that the hospice will continue to support to the community no matter what the patient’s decision is around euthanasia.
Ginny reported that currently the hospice is able to recruit enough doctors and nurses to meet its needs.  The organisation befits greatly from about 350 volunteers helping in the shops, gardens and kitchens.
To conclude her discussion Ginny talked about the desirability of people having a will, powers of attorney in place, and a plan for advanced care.

 

Our guest speaker, 3^rd March was Marnie Brosnahan. Marnie is a multi-talented Year 12 student at Logan Park High School where she enjoys music, art, football, movies, murder mysteries and outdoor activities. Marnie has written and carefully edited her Rotary 4 Way Test speech for the District 9980 area speech competition. Marnie will be finalist in the competition on 12^th April to be held at the Dunedin Club and via Zoom (contact Lynne Guy if you are interested in attending this event).

 

Marnie’s speech was a compelling and heart felt delivery addressing women’s affairs, particularly in regard to ageism and fertility related matters.  Marnie quickly engaged the audience with an assertion that we are ‘past our shelf life’!  She then coherently weaved together carefully researched facts and illustrative quotes in a way that challenged our assumptions and strengthened our empathy towards others. The Rotary 4 Way Test once again shows itself to be a powerful tool to use as lens from which to view the world.  Marnie skilfully put it to use and she received positive feedback from our audience and ‘judging panel’ comprising Anna Thomas, Bruce Cowan, Paul Spain and Susan Schweigman.

We wish Marnie well for the competition as she is a  great contender and hopefully may win one of the Rogers Wilkinson sponsored prizes of $1000, $500, $300 and $200! Thanks too to our awesome club member,  Lynne Guy who organises the 4 Way Speech competition event.

Footnote: Marnie’s dad Terry, was a former member of our club when we met at the Savoy.