In its day…
For over 50 years Laura Fergusson Trust provided accommodation, respite, rehab, care, support and companionship for thousands.
This is a much needed facility and service, as any former resident, user of the gym or hydrotherapy pool will say.
We asked Parafed CEO Yann Roux and he said “Laura Fergusson offered a life time care package beyond accommodation. Now every week I get calls from Doctors, physios and others asking me where can their patient go. There is nowhere like Laura Fergusson in Auckland anymore. The loss is significant.”
“ I used the gym and hydrotherapy pool for 10+years. There isn’t a pool like it in Auckland. The temperature of the water was just right. The long ramp on one side of the pool provided access for wheelchair patients as well as those who had difficulty getting into other pools.The work of all the therapists was very much appreciated by all who needed it. They were kind, patient and very skilled in their work.
Nothing can replace it. It is a vital asset for Auckland.”
“Everything I needed, the gym, therapies and support for any of the therapies was at LFT, that is a bonus for somebody learning how to work a wheel chair, Everything in one place. The other bonus was community, there were other people like me who had just had a life changing experience. I made friends and my family were able to chat to other parents and partners who were also adjusting to this new situation. That sense of community can’t be under-estimated.”
“LFT became my home, my sanctuary my learning environment as I learned to live as a tetraplegic after a paragliding accident. The unit was basic but comfortable and allowed the opportunity for the transition to disabled living to begin. It offered reassurance that others like me had managed and were managing to build new lives with limited skills and mobility. We recently celebrated 46 years of marriage which my wife says was in part thanks to the support they have had from LFT staff and patients.”
Carlo and Julie
Carlo and Julie ([pictured opposite) met as teenagers at the Pukeora Home for Disabled in Hawkes Bay. Explains Jane Carrigan, their friend and disability advocate for more than a decade, “it was common for young people with a disability to end up in geriatric hospitals or aged care,” says Jane. “They were terrified of that.” Their futures were made brighter by the opening of Laura Fergusson Trust residential facilities in Auckland in 1970, where people were encouraged to live as independently as possible.
Carlo worked for a construction company as a calculator operator and Julie as a newspaper sub editor. They stayed at the Laura Fergusson Trust residence until the late 1980s when they bought a home nearby. They married in 2012. The couple lived their lives “with courage, dignity and joy” even though in their later years, “they were almost completely dependent on the care of third parties.”
They left an estate worth $1 million to the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI). The legacy, the first bequest made to the ABI, will support the research of Professor Thor Besier and his team in the Musculoskeletal Modelling Group at the ABI, aiming to improve the lives of people with movement disorders such as cerebral palsy. Both Carlo and Julie, were born with cerebral palsy.
Pictured above Carlo Fiorentino and his wife, Julie Thornley. Read more about their bequest to the University of Auckland’s Bio-engineering Institute here.
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2022/05/16/carlo-fiorentini-gift-to-ABI.html
