17 June 2024
Many assume that hospice is only for people at the very end of their life. But Harbour Hospice care is available to anyone who needs specialist support at any stage of a life-limiting illness – and the earlier in a patient’s journey hospice can support them, the more it can do to help them live well in the place they call home with the people they love. Elizabeth Apiata was a patient with Harbour Hospice for well over a year and said the support enabled her to focus on the things that gave her joy – like flowers and her family.
NB: Elizabeth died peacefully in the Harbour Hospice Inpatient Unit on Saturday 4 May with her family by her side. This was her story, which was written just weeks before she died. Her family has given us permission to share it, saying “this is what mama wanted”. Thank you Elizabeth and thank you to Elizabeth’s family and whānau. We are very grateful for your incredible generosity.
If there’s weeding to be done you won’t see Elizabeth Apiata for dust. But when it comes to the act of enjoying a beautiful garden, she’s all in. She takes great joy from flowers, saying, “I love all flowers, but the magnolia is my favourite.”
On this day it was the big, bright sunflowers that drew her out of her Inpatient room and into the Harbour Hospice gardens. The nurses couldn’t find her and searched up and down the hallways in mild panic.
When Elizabeth wandered back in they made a sign for her to leave on her bed. ‘Gone for a walk in the garden’, it said. And she started using it every day.
Elizabeth, 60, is a regular at Harbour Hospice’s Inpatient Unit. She comes every three months, for one week, for respite care and symptom management. Hospice care is not only for those at the very end of their lives, and when you accept hospice care earlier in your journey you are able to enjoy more fully the time you have left in the place you call home, with the people you love.
Elizabeth has cancer and lives with her daughter Moana and son-in-law, Lamoni. Moana takes turns with her sister, Danielle, and Nana, Ngaro, to care for Elizabeth one week at a time each. It was Hospice that brought the family together to make a plan for Elizabeth’s care, because Moana had felt she needed more support from the family. She had been trying to juggle her mum’s care with her work and it had started to become too much.
Moana says the hui put the whānau “on the same page” and “flicked a switch” for them. Elizabeth’s brothers, both keen fishermen, now take a greater role in their sister’s care too, travelling from Northland when they can to bring their cheeky senses of humour and their sister’s favourite kai, freshly-caught seafood.
Hospice supports the entire whānau with community nurse visits and visits and phone calls from the hospice doctors. Moana rings hospice’s 24/7 helpline whenever she’s unsure about anything and says she feels hugely reassured by hospice’s constant presence.
The whānau was introduced to hospice two years after Elizabeth’s diagnosis, when it was suggested to Elizabeth by her GP. But to begin the family questioned why a service like hospice was necessary so early on in Elizabeth’s journey.
“We thought hospice was only for people at the end of life and that’s not where Mum was at,” says Moana. “But a hospice doctor explained all of the things that hospice could do for Mum and that’s when we realised the service was more than we’d thought, and there for people much earlier in their journeys than we’d thought too.”
Elizabeth attends the hospice Day Group programme, which meets once a fortnight for lunch and an informative talk. A social butterfly, Elizabeth thrives on her catch-ups with the other patients and their carers.
She has also had her life story written by a hospice volunteer life story writer for her mokopuna to read. She enjoys massages from hospice’s complementary therapist and visits from hospice’s spiritual adviser and kaiāwhina.
Elizabeth says she loves the multidisciplinary approach to her care. “The Māori way is to have lots of people [from your whānau] caring for you, and I look at hospice and see that the hospice way is the Māori way.”
Moana adds, “The values of hospice are aligned with the values of Māori. It’s family-orientated, it’s open and it’s ‘lots of people’.”
For Elizabeth - a courageous single mother who dedicated her life to giving her girls the very best start she could - this is all she ever wanted. “I used to worry about my girls taking on the burden of looking after me. I didn’t want it to be all on them. But with hospice there from early on, the burden of worry has been lifted from them.”
Moana adds, “As a family we’re a lot closer now. We’ve all come together for Mum and Hospice’s involvement has given us more time to be a family and just enjoy her as we know and love her. Mum has always been a very positive person – who likes to keep us honest! - but as a mum she also worries. Knowing we are all so well connected now and supported by a really good team, that gives Mum peace of mind.”
