Kimihia Home & Hospital

KIMIHIA HOME & HOSPITAL AT A GLANCE KIMIHIA HOME & HOSPITAL WHAT: Community-owned residential aged care facility WHERE: Huntly, New Zealand WEBSITE: www.kimihia.co.nz T he word “Kimihia” means: Look here; look for it; go and seek; search out. A name aptly fitting the reputation of Kimihia Home & Hospital as a sought after destination for elder care. On 3rd March 2019, Kimihia Home & Hospital celebrated 40 years of providing aged residential care. It was a significant milestone that underscores the facility’s importance to the Huntly community. Today, Kimihia and its 18 village units remain a not for profit, Community Charitable Trust and proud to be 100% Huntly owned. While most of the original buildings have been developed or extended, Kimihia Home & Hospital stands testament to the hard work and dedication of the Huntly and Districts community and the valuable contribution from Huntly service clubs of the early 1970s. Fiona Morgan, Kimihia Facility Manager, shares, “To celebrate our anniversary, we had an Open Day celebration and invited the service clubs, and local media and people who had an association with the facility over the 40 years – previous staff, previous board members. We had an afternoon tea and a tour around the developments in the facility. It was a lovely reunion. Huntly used to be a big mining town, and the Home was established back in the ‘70s because those miners were starting to age and there wasn’t anywhere for them to go. So, the local community groups and service clubs decided it was time to set up an aged residential care facility here in town.” Today, Kimihia Home & Hospital is still a community charitable trust non-profit organisation, with involvement from the Rotary Club, the Lions Club and a community board. The original building had 40 rest home level only beds and new sections were added as the need arose, including a 22-bed hospital and a 12-bed dementia unit that was converted from one of the previous rest home wings. In 2013, a dual “ Y O U R H O M E A W A Y F R O M H O M E ”