News

At the recent Volunteer Workshop in Melbourne Rachel McCarthy spoke about her work as Volunteer Manager with the Mary Potter Hospice in Wellington NZ and gave an overview of Palliative Care volunteering in NZ.

There are 29 hospices across NZ which provide support to some 16,000 people each year (on average 551 people per hospice).

The hospices are supported by 11,384 volunteers (on average 392 volunteers per hospice).

Mary Potter Hospice has 600 volunteers actively involved with their work in inpatient settings (about 200 volunteers), within their 8 retail shops (about 250 volunteers) and in other roles including administration and fundraising (about 150 volunteers).

The hospice is about 50% government funded so they rely on community contributions (including fundraising) and volunteer effort. To date they have been focussed on inpatient support but are planning to develop community visiting capacity by volunteers.

For more information about Mary Potter Hospice see http://www.marypotter.org.nz/