Kimberley Centre

Kimberley Centre was a residential institution for children and adults with intellectual disability based on Kimberley Road south of Levin, New Zealand.

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Over the years it went by different names, including Kimberley Mental Deficiency Colony (1944), Levin Hospital and Training School (1957), Kimberley Hospital (1977) and finally Kimberley Centre (1988).

Operation

Established in 1944 Kimberley was one of the New Zealand Governments specialist hospitals developed following the Mental Defectives Amendment Bill (1928) for the care of people with intellectual disabilities. These included Templeton Farm School, in Christchurch (1929), Mangere Hospital, in South Auckland (1966), and Braemar Hospital, Nelson.

On 27 July 1944, 42 young men and three male escorts arrived from Templeton to Levin Farm and Mental Deficiency Colony. Kimberley became the largest of the special hospitals and claimed to be the largest in the southern hemisphere.[1] by 1953, the waiting list for Kimberley Centre had grown to 400 and cabinet approved a major expansion plan that incorporated 11 purpose-built villas. By 1972 it had 660 residents, 400 under the age of 18, transferred under control of Palmerston North Hospital Board.

The Institution was developed on a two hundred acre site previously held by the Werarora Boys Training Farm, New Zealand's principal institution for juvenile delinquents (1906–1939), before becoming an RNZAF Base for the pilot training (1939–44).

In 1959, an on-site School of Nursing was built at Kimberley Centre, and following the introduction of a new psychopaedic curriculum, the first psychopaedic nurses in New Zealand graduated from the Centre in 1964.

Closure

Pressure towards the deinstitutionalisation of state care towards community-based care gained momentum in the 1980s. In 1985 the New Zealand Government announced it was adopting a policy of community living for people living in long-stay institutional care.

The last 300 residents of the Kimberley Centre moved to their new community homes in October, 2006 [2] ending an era of large scale residential institutions for people with an intellectual disability in New Zealand.

The Kimberley Centre was to be the last institution of its kind in New Zealand to close.

Inquiry

The state's actions and treatment of residents at Kimberley is part of The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care.

Notable Residents

Robert Martin who was the first person with learning disability to be elected to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, who grew up in various institutions and foster homes was placed there when he was just 18 months old.

Site

The 48-hectare site was purchased in 2013 by developer and Horowhenua District Council deputy mayor Wayne Bishop,[3] who has begun developing it into a 500-home estate and retirement complex, Speldhurst Country Estate. At the time there were 82 buildings on the property a mixture of accommodation, community facilities, storage areas and the chapel [1]

See also

References
  1. https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-dominion-post/20131130/282780649297410
  2. "'We became the lost people, the forgotten people'". RNZ. 2016-12-08. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
  3. "Deputy mayor buys up land including former Hospital site | Scoop News". Scoop.co.nz. 2018-04-26. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
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