Millvale House Miramar
What's new
Stay up to date with what is going on at Millvale House Miramar via our facebook page and articles from our newsletter below.
If you would like to receive our newsletters please talk to the managers to get added to the list.
Magic moments from our home
One of our residents doesn’t usually want to engage in organised activities; she finds them a bit silly. Today, however, she saw me holding a box and she was curious what was inside. I told her that inside the box is a snakes and ladders game and asked if she'd like to play with me. She answered that she doesn’t know how to play, so I offered to teach her. We opened the box and when she saw the game, she suddenly remembered that she does know how to play! While we were playing she thought of her children. She told me that she always falls down the the snakes, while they always go up the ladders! She was laughing as she reminisced.
During a pampering session, I trimmed and then painted the nails of one of our residents. Once I'd finished she smiled at me, looking pleased. “My nails haven’t been done for ages! Thank you so much for doing that!” she exclaimed. Seeing her joy was a heartwarming experience.
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Warm greetings from Jehramae, Evelyn and the Millvale House Miramar team - July newsletter
It doesn’t seem long at all, but more than half the year has passed, and winter has well and truly set in. We have changed over to our winter menu. A copy of this has been posted in each of our kitchenettes, if you wish to take a look. Our residents are enjoying the change and are keeping warm with hearty meals and stews.
Our year so far has been a wonderful blend of happy hours, arts and crafts, and homely household tasks. Listening to music has also been popular. The sound of classical music played on the radio is a common occurrence in our home, as well as our Saturday morning musical entertainment by our lovely pianist. The Whakaahuru singing group has been such an enduring presence in our home. They bring so much happiness when they come once a month to sing classical songs for us.
Over the past few months, we have had so many reasons to celebrate with St. Patrick’s Day, Waitangi Day, Easter, Anzac Day, and Mother’s Day. These days were celebrated with craft activities, reminiscing, and telling and listening to stories.
Our annual flu vaccinations have been completed. All the residents were offered the opportunity to be immunised. Our staff team was also encouraged to take advantage of our free vaccination service. This is an important step in keeping our staff team healthy and helping us to navigate the winter season.
In staffing news, we are happy to announce that Anina has become a Registered Nurse in our home. Prior to this she worked as a Caregiver for us. It is great to see Anina progressing in her career. We welcome Jay-ar Pesigan as our new home assistant. We were sad to say goodbye to Varghese and Christy.
It might also be helpful to know that our GP, Dr. Joanna White is currently on maternity leave. Our residents are now being looked after by Dr. Kim Baker and Dr. Andrea Crichton who are dedicated to resident care.
Many thanks to those who joined the Family Focus Group in April which was conducted by Peter Hume. We value your feedback, so we warmly encourage you to pop in and share ideas or concerns with us anytime.
To keep our home nice, we always work closely with our directors and with our handy man, Rodel. Rodel helps us to maintain the gardens at our facility, which can be a challenge at this time of year.
Our annual Mid-Winter Family Gathering is scheduled for Thursday the 31st of July from 2pm. We look forward to seeing you all on that day, and spending time with you and your loved ones.
Lastly, we hope that you are keeping warm. It is always a pleasure to have you as part of our Millvale Miramar family, and we would like to thank you for your continuing support and trust.
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Thank you for your feedback
At each of our rest homes around the country we have a regular family focus group. These groups are facilitated by Peter Hume who works for Dementia Care NZ from Christchurch. Sessions are aimed at getting some feedback from family members who visit often about how we can improve.
We ask questions like: How can we make life better for your loved one here? How can we make life easier for you? How can we support you more? At these meetings we often receive a gem of an idea that we take forward and put into action.
This year we had a session at Millvale House Miramar. The focus group attendees were positive about the care provided at Millvale. One family member said that said that they really appreciate the care staff give, commenting that staff seem to enjoy what they do and it shows. They also said they appreciated the acknowledgement of them, as family members, as being part of the home; that staff call them by name and always make a cup of tea.
There were also various issues raised which we are following up:
• Access to outside doors at night-time.
• Potential usefulness of cameras to monitor resident movements.
• Width of paths in the garden.
• Flies and pigeons in the home particularly over the summer months.
We would like to thank everyone who was able to come to the family focus group. We really appreciate your time providing us with this feedback. We will continue to update you as we make progress with the issues raised in the focus groups.
If you have some feedback for us please do get in touch, and we also appreciate hearing your thoughts through the EPOA survey. -
Greetings from Jehramae and Evelyn
We extend our warmest greetings to you in our first newsletter for 2025. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Our annual Christmas Gathering was a fun-filled afternoon for residents, their families, friends, and staff. It was such a lovely occasion. We were also very fortunate to welcome some very special visitors, the children who came to sing Christmas carols.
It is wonderful to see the enjoyment of the residents taking part in the daily activities of family life here in their home and we recently enjoyed a lovely barbeque in our garden. Our activities team continue to plan this year’s activities to include regular van trips around the bays, garden walks, baking, musical afternoons, sing alongs, pampering sessions and arts and crafts. As always, homely activities play an important role in our daily lives. We will continue to have live music with our pianist, Joanne every Saturday. Whakaahuru Singers will continue their monthly visits, on the 4th Tuesday of the month.
We have recently replaced the carpets in the lounges and hallways and repainted the walls with a new colour scheme. This has brightened our home and has been very much enjoyed.
We would like to welcome our newly hired RN, Neena. Neena is an International Registered Nurse who started as a Caregiver and has completed the requirements to become a New Zealand Registered Nurse. It was sad to say goodbye to Jaimol James who resigned for an opportunity abroad.
We also welcome Simon Hamley to our home. We are very happy that Simon, the Education Coordinator and Mental Health Nurse for Dementia Care NZ, is now working from Millvale House Miramar. You might see him sometimes around our home.
We wish to extend an especially warm welcome to our new residents. We are really enjoying getting to know their families and friends as they become an important part of our home. This year, an area of focus is enabling and helping families who wish to be more involved in their loved ones’ care.
We thank you for all your feedback from the family survey last year. We encourage everyone’s participation as it helps us to improve our services. Together we are a team with the same goal; to ensure that your loved ones feel happy, valued, and loved.