$1.5M campaign for haven tops $400,000

Press, 5 December 1988, Page 9

$1.5M campaign for haven tops $400,000

By

SARONA IOSEFA

A campaign to raise $1.5 million to renovate and extend Churchill Courts haven for the mentally frail aged has passed $400,000.

The project, which costs $3 million altogether, is being subsidised by the government for $1.5 million, said one of the fund organisers, Mr Harvey Teulon. The money would build the South Island’s first specialist unit for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease — a degenerative disorder that

produces dementia in middle to late life, Mr Teulon said.

“The Health Department informed us that this was the area that most needed facilities. There are a lot of beds spare for physically frail elderly, but not the mentally frail.”

The 20-bed unit would be a haven for the patients and those caring for them, said Mr Teulon. It would provide day facilities where families could leave a sufferer for a few hours or full-care facilities for those needing hospitalisation.

Donors had offered everything from soft furnishings, costing $6OO, to a memorial garden at $15,000. Mr Teulon said the Anglican Church, which ran Churchill Courts, was trying a new approach to Alzheimer’s disease that would provide “pleasant, natural surroundings to help rid patients of frustrations of the disease.” “Recent statistics have shown that by the time people become aged, onefifth will be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and conditions similar to it,” he said.