A $3.8million extension at Waipuna Hospice, which is set to boost its range of services for an increasing number of patients, officially opened its doors this morning.

With the help of Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller and NZ food personality Jo Seagar, who is Hospice NZ Ambassador, the hospice extension dedicated to day services was officially opened in front of a small gathering.

Trish Rae, Richard Thurlow, Todd Muller and Jo Seagar at the opening of the new Waipuna Hospice extension. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

The Te Puna-based centre's new Day Services Wing connects to the existing building, and will contain clinic and medical procedure rooms and lounge and family areas, as well as providing more space for counselling, bereavement support groups, massage therapy and education.

It will also include an expanded training room accommodating up to 100 people to provide specialist palliative care education to general practitioners, practice nurses and aged residential care staff.

The extension spans 980 square metres and has cost $2.4 million for the extension plus renovation work within the original part of the building.

In addition, $1.2 million has been spent on ground works, equipment fit out, and landscaping to include car parking and new equipment sheds.

The project has been funded equally by TECT and by bequests made to the Waipuna Hospice Foundation.

Waipuna Hospice chief executive Richard Thurlow says: 'We have been able to carry out this project as a direct consequence of people making bequests.

'We couldn't have done this without them - there is a real legacy to these bequests.”

Day services caters for terminally ill, able bodied, ambulatory people visiting the hospice's doctors, nurses and allied health workers. Up until now, it has been run out of separate rooms within the hospice.

Richard says having a large space dedicated to day services was beneficial on many levels.

It will enable improved palliative care and better management of workloads as the dedicated space would offer efficiencies for the hospice's nursing teams.

It will also offer 'significant input” into health care through education, as practise nurse and general practitioner palliative care education sessions will be held in the new training room space.

The opening of the day services unit gives the service the ability to double the number of clinics and procedures offered for visiting hospice patients.

It will mean an expansion in the number of short, medical, day procedures and an increase in the number of activities related to arts, crafts and musical entertainment.

There will now be rooms dedicated to one-on-one, or group counselling.

'And, very importantly,” he adds, 'it will be of huge benefit to the carers of hospice patients. Patients will be able to attend various activities, to be looked after by our fabulous voluntary team, whilst their carers can take advantage of some respite.”

Richard admits the entire wing isn't fully functional yet due to the existing hospice building also receiving a facelift with changes to its existing building structure.

'Its functioning and we are gradually building up to use all the spaces,” he adds. 'We have had to move stuff into the building for a short period while the offices were refurbished and re-carpeted so we have used it as a bit of a decanting space.

'We are starting to build up the services we will provide, which will be gradually built up over the next 12 months as we recruit volunteers and train them. It's going to be a great facility for us.”