Thank you to all who responded to our Preliminary Plan described in last month’s Martinborough Star. We appreciate both your written feedback and your input at our meetings. We acknowledge signatories to the petition to bring back rest home care. Your responses are very helpful in showing us what the community wants.
We assumed the community understood, back in March, that we had to close the rest home due to the ongoing shortage of clinical staff and our rapidly deteriorating financial position, and that it was very unlikely we would be able to offer rest home care again in the next few years, due to the inadequacy of funding for aged care and desperate shortages of nurses across the whole sector. We were wrong in that assumption.
You tell us you want rest home care only, without any hospital level services. This requires fewer nurses. We have re-run the numbers for 20 bed rest home care, using current funding and pay rates.
We are confident of the costs of operating of Wharekaka at rest home level as we were providing this for the first three months of 2022. We are less sure how many residents we would have if providing only rest home care. Income is harder to predict as it varies with how many residents there are (occupancy). In the last few years before Wharekaka began to offer hospital level care, rest home occupancy was low. Unfortunately, when occupancy drops, income falls but costs change imperceptibly. Many costs are fixed, including staff. Staff are the biggest cost by far, and shifts must be covered to the same safety requirements, whether 12 or 20 beds are occupied. Due to turnover of residents, it is impossible to have full occupancy all the time.
Estimate of Annual Revenue and Costs for Wharekaka, as a 20-bed rest home in 2022
| Average Occupancy over the year | 60% (12 beds)
Low case | 80% (16 beds)
Base case | 95% (19 beds)
High case |
| Income | $ | $ | $ |
| TOTAL REVENUE | 798,130 | 1,030,430 | 1,204,655 |
| Expenditure | |||
| Staff costs | 977,396 | 977,396 | 977,396 |
| Other fixed costs | 265,537 | 267,537 | 267,537 |
| Food and supplies | 117,000 | 137,000 | 147,000 |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURE | 1,359,933 | 1,379,933 | 1,389,333 |
| LOSS/SHORTFALL per Annum | 561,803 | 349,503 | 185,278 |
We welcome any suggestions as to how the shortfall should be funded.
In addition to operating costs, Wharekaka requires significant capital investment. The building is sound but the infrastructure (for example: boiler, heating system, wiring, emergency lighting) is at the end of its useful life.
Meanwhile we continue to operate our successful Meals on Wheels programme and look after our Villas and residents as well as maintain the facility. There is a net loss from these activities before fund raising of around $100,000 per annum, The support of our Oak Tree funders contributes approximately $35,000 each year and is critical to our ongoing viability. We currently have sufficient funds on hand to trade through to early 2023 but need more community funding and support from our Wairarapa institutions. We encourage anyone who can do so to contribute – your donations, large or small, will all help make a difference.
Wharekaka consultation continues during September. Further meetings at Wharekaka are scheduled for:
Thursday 15 September at 10.30 a.m. Wednesday 21 September at 2.30 p.m. Please send written feedback to admin@wharekaka.org
