11 September 2024
It takes a village to raise a child. And it takes a village to care for someone who is nearing the end of life. At any given time, Harbour Hospice cares for around 440 people and 50 of those people live alone. Michael Smyth is one of those people and in this story he talks about the impact his village - made up of caring neighbours and Harbour Hospice team members and volunteers - has had on him.
If Michael Smyth had the chance to live his life again, he wouldn’t change a thing. “I have no regrets. I’ve never been a bad person, and I can’t say I made any enemies.”
Michael, who was born and raised in Ireland in a family of 12 children, is what you’d call a big softie - and in his 72 years he has lived a life. The father of one has lived on six continents and served 25 years in the British Armed Forces. After emigrating to New Zealand in 1997 and settling in Wellsford because he
liked its name, he made great friends through working on an avocado farm. The last 15 years of his career he spent pumping concrete.
Now, he is part of the Harbour Hospice whānau, after being referred to hospice by a hospital doctor in December 2021. Michael has life-limiting illnesses that affect his breathing and mobility, including COPD (a respiratory illness), heart and kidney disease and cancer.
He came to hospice early in his journey, with Harbour Hospice Community Team Leader Paula Garner explaining that when people live on their own they often need more assistance. “Because they run out of energy to support themselves, and because they might not have anyone to advocate for them.”
Right from the get-go, Michael made it clear he wanted to remain at home, Paula says. And because he has such wonderful neighbours in a young couple who took Michael under their wing – visiting him twice a day, doing his shopping, taking out his rubbish, picking up his prescriptions and more - hospice was able to support Michael to do that.
To begin with, the hospice community nursing and family support teams visited Michael every four to six weeks. Then as his needs became more complex the visits increased. The team brought in hospice volunteer services, who arranged for volunteers to drive Michael to appointments, then Michael began coming into hospice regularly (driven by hospice volunteers) to attend day respite and Open Doors - a patient support group that meets fortnightly to connect and learn about useful topics.
Michael loves both services for the social connection. At day respite he enjoys chatting with the nurses and volunteers. “They must all be cut from the same cloth, because they’ve all got big, open hearts and the compassion comes so naturally from them,” he says.
Of Open Doors he says the other patients in the group have him constantly laughing. “They’ve always got funny stories and a real sense of humour. You wouldn’t think a group of dying people would be so much fun, but they are great fun to be with.”
In a typical month, Michael might have 18 interactions with hospice, ranging from in-person visits to phone calls to car rides with trusted volunteers to time spent in day respite or at Open Doors. He has also had two Inpatient Unit stays – one for respite care and one to manage troublesome symptoms.
“This is our multi-disciplinary approach to patient care,” Paula explains. “Between our community nursing team, family support and the volunteers, patients have a lot of people looking out for and monitoring them. They are far from alone.”
Michael says hospice has changed his life. “It’s given me a new perspective. I’m not worrying about life, now, or worrying about death. It’s how I live the rest of my life that counts, and they’ve given me the confidence and the will to live it out the best I can.”
Michael died on 3 August 2024. One of his final wishes was that we run his story so that others can learn about the good work hospice does. “I’ve always been a private person and there are not too many people I would’ve done this for, but hospice is one of them.”
