An aerial shot of Wairoa. Photo: Pool/NZME
A Wairoa social worker is calling on the government to help build a new rest home for the town to relieve whānau of stress from looking after their elderly.
The town's only aged care facility, Heritage Lifecare Glengarry, closed after Cyclone Gabrielle. It forced the relocation of more than 30 residents to Hawke's Bay and Gisborne.
Aroha Moeau is a social worker with the biggest GP practice in Wairoa and said families were caring for loved ones at home because of the lack of any care beds.
Often they were in already overcrowded homes without the right equipment or experience.
'Wairoa elders are suffering': flood hit town has no aged care
She told Nine to Noon the strain on whānau and individuals was also making them sick while caring for their loved one.
"We don't have enough beds here to go into the homes, we don't have enough resources, we don't have enough people to go and train those people to go in to train the careers to look after their whānau properly. Just getting them out of bed, you need to be trained to use a hoist. Some of those whānau are bed ridden," Moeau said.
Moeau said Wairoa Hospital had about nine acute beds but there were no respite or palliative beds, with the hospital already full to capacity.
She also said the closure of the rest home was a double whammy.
"We've got whānau on site, they're in mobile homes and they are restricted in regards to space so they're finding it hard because their home is next door and they can't get into it because they're still waiting for it to be repaired or they weren't insured and they can't repair it," Moeau said.
Meanwhile, a Wairoa iwi was looking to build a elderly care centre to help residents who may not be able to upgrade their homes to make them more user-friendly.
Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa was working to raise $6.5 million to make it happen.
Its chief executive, Lewis Ratapu, told Nine to Noon the town desperately needed rest home hospital level care.
He said the layout was based on Abbeyfields in the UK which had both homes, facilities and medical care.
"There's a tangi here nearly every day, generally people are at home that require a greater level of support just to wash. We have a very old housing stock, we don't have the sorts of facilities people would need to care for themselves, Ratapu said.
Thirty-five percent of the towns housing stock was flooded in Cyclone Gabrielle and June's floods.
He said the layout was to relieve whānau of financial pressures who may not be able to afford for their kamātua to live in a rest home.
"Rest homes are around about $1200 per week, whereas an accommodation supplement you'd access through your supers at $70 per week. So $1200 to $70 is the comparison between what it costs to keep an elderly person in a rest home vs an elderly person in a facility like this so huge cost savings," Ratapu said.
He said he has been in contact with Housing Minster Chris Bishop and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development who had seen the model and before Cyclone Gabrielle, were in talks about funding.
But Cyclone Gabrielle caused a rise in costs making it harder to get over the line.
Since then, he had got back in contact with the government who was looking at it again and awaiting multiple housing announcements.
RNZ contacted Heritage Lifecare about the closure of the Glengarry facility who said it could not comment.
It was currently still working with its insurance company and landlord to reach an outcome for Glengarry after the damaged caused by Cyclone Gabrielle last year.
Te Whatu Ora and The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development have been contacted for comment.