ED nurse Lee-Ann Church who is passionate about palliative care in the ED and decided to fundraise so that ED could create a restful place of for pallative care patients with comfortable chairs, soft-lighting and warm knitted blankets.
A Lake Tarawera sunrise is the centrepiece of a "tranquil" new palliative care room at Rotorua Hospital's emergency department.
Encompassing tikanga Māori and a far cry from the usual clinical space, the room was created through a combination of community generosity and the tireless efforts of nurse Lee-Ann Church.
"Idid it a lot for the patients but also a lot for the family to make the experience coming through less clinical, a little bit more homely and just make the patient and the family feel welcome," Church said.
What once was a clinical space has been transformed to a room with ever lasting views. Photo / Andrew Warner
The room is for people facing the end of a terminal disease.
It may also be used for someone who has died while in the department - in this case, either a family or staff member would sit with the body, in accordance with tikanga Māori.
"People don't really want to be in there. But if someone has to be there, we're gonna make it nice as we can for them," Church said.
"Otherwise, [those in palliative care] are sitting in the waiting room in a clinical spare. Their life is very limited and they know it and the last place that they want to be is a hospital waiting room or even a hospital for that matter."
Motivated by her own experience, Church raised $3000 after running the Rotorua Marathon last year and wrangled the skills of her husband, managing director of DCA Architects, to work some magic resulting in free building and design work.
Her favourite element of the room was the Tarawera sunrise, which the room has been aptly named after.
"It brings me something like a new hope, new day, a new beginning. It brings hope and peace to people."
Emergency Department nurse Lee-Ann Church with the Lake Tarawera sunrise which adorns the wall. Photo / Andrew Warner
Rotorua Hospital Emergency Department head Dr Suzanne Moran was also infatuated with the sunrise that set the colour scheme for the room.
"It's just beautiful. It's so tranquil and ... It doesn't look like a clinical room."
It still has the ability to become a clinical space, need be, but what was once a PPE storage room is now living up to its full potential, Moran said.
She believed a clinical-looking space would add to the misery of the situation.
"It's an incredibly stressful time when someone's dying and to be able to try to give them a little bit of relief, even it might not mean much at the time, I think when people look back on those difficult times they will remember that the staff tried to help put them in a nicer space.
"Some of these patients might only be in the emergency department for a short while before they go home and we just wanted to say to them, 'your time is precious and if you're going to have to spend time here, we want you to spend it in a nicer place than a typical emergency department room'."
