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Cyclone Gabrielle Recovery – Enliven Older People

Intensive Home Support

Following Cyclone Gabrielle in February, our Napier Intensive Home Support team was physically cut off from the Hastings team. The cyclone caused widespread interruptions to power, road access, and all forms of communication. The dedicated Napier team quickly gathered at an alternative location to support Napier older people as best they could under the circumstances. Initially the Napier team provided support and welfare checks and later offered essential services.

Enliven Older People Nurses and Key Support Workers meeting early after Cyclone Gabrielle to provide services to Napier clients

Meanwhile some staff were able to access the Havelock North office on the morning after the cyclone, but arrived in the dark. The Havelock North office had no power, internet, or phone communication which meant that initially the team didn’t know the full impact unfolding across the regions. The team spent the early morning catching up with filing while they waited for power and communication outages to be restored. Once more information was available, the team swiftly shifted gear into a very busy period to support our Hastings and Havelock North older people, and to enable the Napier team to put together their support approach.

Thank you to Jacqui, Leighanne, Joan, Robyn and Tracy for ‘filing in the dark’ at the Enliven Older People Havelock North offices the morning after Cyclone Gabrielle

During March the full Intensive Home Support team met, from ‘both sides of the bridge’ that separates Napier and Hastings, and are offering full client services again.

Richard, Enliven Older People Service Manager, is proud of the team, “I want to acknowledge the whole team for their amazing response to this emergency. Particularly the team that kept the Havelock and Hastings team going in the first instance as they enabled the Napier team to quickly put together a response on their side as well. We are very grateful for all the staff that have been willing to help out, particularly as some of them have had very difficult situations to contend with.’”