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Families dipped into pockets in bid to save Auckland rest home

It’s despite some families raising nearly $120,000 of their own money to try and keep it running.

Desperate families passed the hat around to try save an Auckland rest home from closing.

This week Mercy Parklands in Ellerslie announced it would close, saying it had lost $400,000 in six months and couldn't afford to keep going.

Jane Sheetz and Rachel McQueen both have parents in the facility and were among those to dip into their own pockets.

"Within 10 days, only within current families – not even going to past families – we managed to raise $118,000 cash," said Sheetz.

"A lot of us were recommended by the hospital, social workers, by doctors that Mercy Parklands was an extra level of pastoral care as well as clinical care," McQueen said.

"We don't want to lose it."

Mercy Parklands said it had to close because of reduced occupancy. It did not have enough qualified nurses to care for its full quota of residents.

It had just 72 of its 97 beds occupied. 1News understands this means the facility does not qualify for all its government funding.

Families say management had told them a group of overseas nurses would come to work in the rest home.

1News asked the rest home board about these nurses, and about the donations raised by families. In a statement, board chairman Arthur Morris said the donations were generous but it considered it an "unacceptable risk to rely on donations going forward".

"With the decision to close, all donations received will be returned."

Regarding the overseas nurses, Morris said: "If we succeed to attract staff, retention and turnover will continue to be challenging in the foreseeable future."

The Aged Care Association said the decision to close Mercy Parklands was a tragedy. It was one of about 20 rest homes to close this year because of a nursing shortage, leading to a loss of 1100 beds across the country.

"The closure of Mercy Parklands should be a wakeup call for the Government as to how urgent this matter is," Aged Care Association chief executive Simon Wallace said.

He said an ageing population meant demand would continue to rise for years to come, yet the sector was 1200 nurses short out of a 5000-strong workforce.

Wallace said a key concern was that nurses in public hospitals earned $20,000 to $30,000 more than rest home nurses. The association had been lobbying for pay parity for some time.

"We also need to get the immigration settings fixed," he said. "We need nurses to be given immediate residency from day one, and put on a fast-track green list."

1News approached Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand about the Mercy Parklands closure. In a statement, it said it is supporting the rest home residents to find places in other facilities, and it was confident that all would be successful.

It added: "While any reduction in bed numbers can, for a time, have some impact on the system, facilities with vacancies are currently available across Auckland."

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