Opening of St Albans Retirement Village
Tuesday 10 June 2003
Pleased to be here. Homes such as this are becoming more
interesting to me by the day.
How to house our older people with dignity,
safety and respect is a problem.
That will only become more important
in future, particularly in Christchurch where we are tipped to
have the highest proportion
of aged people per head of population anywhere in New Zealand in
just a few years.
Has been interesting to watch the evolution of
the retirement homes in this area and the rest of Christchurch.
When
you start to tally it up a significant part of the present building
boom comes from this type of activity.
The Third Age as they call
it is an issue that will become hugely important to us all. In
fact Council is soon to start a
series of Friday Forums to look at the needs and issues of the "new" old.
Some
of us with longer memories will recall how this complex started
life out as Laurel Lea Retirement Home in 1986.
Gordon and Karen Hartley have been the owners here since 1998
and changed the name to the present one in 1999.
The present round
of extensions have cost $3 million in just over a year.
I'm told
you now have 35 rest home rooms, 27 serviced apartments and four
independent villas. Along with that is a new
entrance, reception, offices, beauty salon, atrium, new lounges
and dining rooms.
There are apparently 66 people living here and
my accountant's nose tells me that the average age would be about
87.
Hopefully that does not also hold true for the staff
who I am told number 40.
The good thing about high quality care
such as this is that it reinforces the message that looking after
our old well,
is a goal that we can only reach with both private and public
sector commitment.
The Christchurch City Council is of course a
major landlord for many Christchurch elderly. Equally obviously,
we can only carry
so much of this on our own.
I'm sure in 50 years’ time the
history books will note that once again Canterbury led the way
in how we dealt with
these challenges.
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