Welcome
“A place to call home… that is what the staff of Omahanui and I strive to achieve for those living at our home.
I have recognised the need for a suitable environment for long-term disabled young people for some time. Twenty years ago, a young New Plymouth woman was involved in a major car accident, she never regained consciousness. She was admitted to long-stay geriatric care and spent her final years there. I did not consider it to be a suitable environment for a permanent home of young people, nor a pleasant environment for the families to come and visit their loved family members.
Two years later, my eldest son, Max, was killed in a car accident. Had he lived, and been in a similar situation, he would have ended in the same long-stay geriatric care home, as there were no other suitable facilities available.
The costs both emotional and financially of establishing what I consider a suitable facility have been beyond my resources for many years. However, as I am approaching the end of my working career, the Special Unit project could not be ignored. To have retired without having established what I consider to be an appropriate facility in Taranaki would have let down countless young people for whom no facilities existed. So the project had to happen regardless of the costs to me.” Pat Wesley
