National community award for hospital trust

The Friends of Motueka Hospital Trust has won the top award at the TrustPower National Community Awards.

The trust, which was behind the building of Motueka's Jack Inglis Friendship Hospital, represented Nelson and Tasman at Saturday's awards in Nelson and beat 24 other regional winners to become the national winner.

The trust was established after the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board decided to close the existing community hospital in Motueka.

Over 16 years, the trust and the people of Motueka fundraised and built a new hospital to meet the community's needs. The hospital opened last June and boasts state-of-the-art equipment, an ensuite bathroom for each room and a therapeutic bath with its own lifting equipment.

The trust was represented at the awards by its chairman, Jack Inglis, and his eldest son John, along with Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne and his wife, Jane, Nelson Mayor Kerry Marshall and Nelson city councillor Gail Collingwood.

John Inglis made a heartfelt eight-minute presentation to the judges, telling them how nearly every person in Motueka was involved in the effort to build the hospital. He said he had tried to humanise the story of the hospital, including telling a few jokes about his father, such as the story that Jack turns down his hearing aid so he can't hear people telling him "no".

He ended with the Chinese proverb that one generation plants a tree and the next enjoys the shade. "I suggested we had just planted a kauri forest," he said.

The hospital's 45 beds filled quickly and the trust is now at work raising $1.8 million to build another 20-room wing, with construction planned to begin this year.

The judges, who included Alasdair Finnie, director of the Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Kerre Woodham and Jim Mora, said the trust told "a stunning story of what passion and a community can achieve".

The trust received a trophy, $2500 prize money and a framed certificate, along with a prize package from Foresee Communications.

John Inglis said the trust planned to display the Katie Gold ceramic trophy and the plaque in a shopfront in Motueka, as a way of sharing the award with the people of Motueka.

The awards were filmed by a TVNZ 6 crew, who will be profiling the trust in a new series called Volunteer Power, to screen in late May.

- © Fairfax NZ News