Steve Braunias: The lost and found - A portrait of life inside a rest home
26 minutes to read Summer in Auckland can often turn dark and oppressive. On days when the slow approach of a tropical thunderstorm turned the sky black and drained the Waitākere ranges of colour, I dreaded heading out to the Roseridge rest home in Henderson. It was deathly weather and it trapped the residents inside as surely as lockdown. They were housebound, feeble. Old age is a slope of decline and fall – the physical indignities, the mind wandering into some lunar wasteland. A visit on days like that seemed a bleak and cheerless way to spend my time but in fact every time I visited Roseridge in the summer of 2020-21, I left on a high, as though I had emerged from some strange and magical kingdom.
Extern Ireland, a charity assisting vulnerable people, used public funding for services to provide âemergency hardship loansâ to staff members, which was used towards their childrenâs college fees, car tax and NCT and baby equipment, a financial audit has found.
The internal HSE audit, dated January 21st, 2020, issued eight âhighâ ranked recommendations to the charity, which provides services to individuals facing a variety of difficulties such as homelessness, addiction, social exclusion and mental health problems.
The report found that Extern Ireland issued âemergency hardship loansâ of up to â¬2,500 to staff in âexceptional circumstancesâ.
However, when the audit reviewed the charityâs listing for loans, it identified loans listed for which paperwork could not be found by Extern Ireland or for which it was unclear whether the loan had been paid.