Elisabeth Nicholls vanished from retirement village hours being admitted
Photo:
Supplied / NZ police
The retirement village where Christchurch woman Elisabeth Nicholls disappeared from says it's "terribly saddened" by the news police searching for her have
found a body
.
The 79-year-old, who suffered from dementia, walked out of the Margaret Stoddart Retirement Village in Riccarton on the evening of 4 June, only hours after being admitted for respite care.
On Sunday, police found a body believed to be that of Nicholls in the Gracefield Avenue area, only two kilometres from where she went missing.
The Margaret Stoddart Retirement Village was run by Ryman Healthcare.
In a statement, Ryman's chief operating officer Marsha Cadman said the company was supporting its residents and team members in the village and continuing to liaise with police.
"Ryman, along with our Margaret Stoddart Village team, are "terribly saddened" by the news that a body has been found in the search for Elisabeth Nicholls. Our thoughts and deepest condolences go out to Elisabeth's family and friends at this incredibly difficult time," she said.
The company would work with Health NZ to look into what happened, a Ryman spokesperson said.
Nicholls was referred to the village for respite care by Health NZ.
"Our contracts with them set out the level of care to be provided. Margaret Stoddart Village provides only rest home level care, whereby residents are able to come and go independently. This is not a dementia care facility," the spokesperson said.
Nicholls arrived at the retirement village on the morning of 4 June and was last seen at 6.01pm.
"At 6.20pm, team members at the village became aware that Elisabeth may have chosen to leave, on what was her first night at the village, and immediately commenced a search of the premise," Ryman said.
"A village search was undertaken including a search of each room, shared space and the rest home grounds, followed by contacting next of kin. As is standard protocol, if a resident is still unable to be located following this process, we then contact police."
The last confirmed sighting of Nicholls was over an hour later at the Chateau on the Park Hotel in Riccarton, about 500 metres from the retirement village.
Following her disappearance, police and Land Search and Rescue volunteers scoured areas of the city to find Nicholls.
Pleas were made for the public to check their backyards and anywhere she might have taken refuge.
In a statement, Nicholls' family said they were very saddened and relieved she had been found on Sunday.
The family was very grateful for everyone's efforts in looking for her, particularly police and members of the Christchurch public.
Detective Sergeant Luke Vaughan said on Sunday he hoped the discovery would help provide some closure for her family and loved ones.
Formal identification is yet to take place.
The death will be referred to the coroner.
RNZ approached Health NZ for comment.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Nurses to start local industrial action before strikes
Healthcare workers hold placards at a picket line in Wellington as nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants strike nationwide. Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone Nurses begin the next round of their industrial action from Monday as they push for better staffing levels . Local action will include district nurses on Auckland's North Shore wearing T-shirts saying 'Not Enough Nurses' instead of uniforms. Nurses who work in the cardiothoracic and Vascular Intensive Care Units at Auckland City and Whangārei Hospital will refuse to shift to other wards to cover staff shortages. "The North Shore District Nursing Service is short of six staff," NZNO delegate and district nurse Lesley Pook said. "That leaves 26 nurses to provide crucial community-based nursing, such as complex wound care, intravenous medication management, cancer treatment support and palliative care. "Being short-staffed means we have to ration care. We can't see everyone when we need to and have to rush the appointments of those we can get to." The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) says it follows the 24-hour nationwide strike by 36,000 Te What Ora nurses, midwives and healthcare workers at the end of last month . Last week, Health New Zealand was deeply concerned by the plans, which it said would cause the postponement of more than 2200 planned procedures, 3600 first specialist appointments and 8000 follow-up appointments. NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter said Te Whatu Ora members voted strongly to go on strike, after a solution could not be found through bargaining. A full strike is planned from 7am-11pm on Tuesday, 2 September and Thursday, 4 September. "I think it very clearly points to nurses being fed up with the government's inability to resource the system properly to ensure patient safety," Goulter said. Health NZ said it was happy to return to the bargaining table and was committed to finding a solution. "We want to do our very best for our nurses and we think we've put a very fair offer on the table," Health NZ chief executive Dale Bramley said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
17 hours ago
- RNZ News
'Silent crisis': Asian people missing out on mental health support
Asian Family Services commissioned the mental health and well-being report. Photo: 123RF Asian people in Christchurch are missing out on mental health support because of language and cultural barriers, as part of a "silent crisis" of worsening national statistics, community leaders say. A mental health and well-being report commissioned by Asian Family Services published in July found that 57 percent of respondents were at risk of depression , which was a 12 percent increase on the figure reported in 2021. Asian Family Services chief executive Kelly Feng said 69 percent of Korean respondents and 63 percent of Indians showed signs of depression, while life satisfaction among all Asians had fallen by 11 percent since 2021. "These findings point to a silent crisis," she said. "Asian communities are navigating mental health challenges, discrimination, disconnection, often without adequate support. We urgently need culturally responsive interventions in schools, workplaces and healthcare settings." Kelly Feng Photo: RNZ / Yiting Lin Asian Community Transformation Trust founder Allen Hou said people's struggles were compounded by a lack of bilingual mental health professionals in Christchurch. Canterbury's Asian population had grown by 30 percent since 2018, but support services lagged behind other regions, he said. "Even if people have that knowledge and want to access help, that's when they face the common challenges we know of language and culture - 'I can't speak my heart language to describe my issues and my emotions and therefore I can't engage and utilise this service fully'," he said. Hou estimated there were only a handful of mental health professionals in Christchurch who spoke Asian languages. "We're doing our best to advocate for the community about the needs and encourage them to consider that as a career path even for their children. We try to meet with counselling students who are Asians and just encourage them in this space," he said. Allen Hou from Asian Community Transformation Trust. Photo: RNZ / Anna Sargent Hou founded the Christchurch-based charitable trust in 2021. The group works with organisations, schools and GP practices to help bridge service gaps. "Since we started we heard continuously from organisations in Christchurch that service people, council and other spaces that they've never come across an organisation like us. It makes us think we're onto something that no-one has been trying to meet in Christchurch," Hou said. Hou said stigma and shame around poor mental health remained strong in some Asian cultures. While Christchurch recorded the highest life satisfaction of any city in the report, Feng said it also reported higher than average barriers to accessing mental health services, echoing Hou's experience on the ground. Feng said calls to Asian Family Services' Asian Helpline had tripled since Covid-19, rising from about 3000 annually to about 10,000. The organisation's report was based on an online survey of 1016 Asian adults in May, funded by the Ethnic Communities Development Fund, which is administered by the Ministry for Ethnic Communities. The report was the third of its kind, with earlier versions published in 2020 and 2021 . Feng said discrimination remained a significant problem, with more than one in five people experiencing race-based bias. "Only 56.5 percent Asians felt like they were accepted by the community. It's really challenging for people feeling like they are just not part of the society," she said. Hou, who immigrated from Taiwan to New Zealand aged 11 in 1998, said moving countries was often stressful. "At my age the main struggle was language, the sense of being able to make friends and understanding what was happening at schools. For my parents it's different things like medical systems, for example in Taiwan where we're from we just go to hospital, but in New Zealand you have to find a GP and everything goes from there," he said. University of Auckland social and community health senior lecturer Dr Vartika Sharma said 75 percent of ethnic minority communities in New Zealand were born overseas. "They might've come from countries where mental health is still quite stigmatised so they don't have the vocabulary to talk about mental health. That all becomes quite challenging in terms of acknowledging it's a problem in the first place," she said. Sharma said a lack of high-quality data on the mental health of Asian and Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African women and girls in New Zealand also made it harder to design effective services. "It's a point of worry because it's a population that's expected to grow, and we don't want them to be invisible," she said. Stats NZ projections show Asians will make up about 26 percent of New Zealand's population by 2043, up from 16 percent in 2018. If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- NZ Herald
Bowel screening uptake in Bay of Plenty appalling
It is a similar story in the Lakes health district, covering Taupō and Rotorua, where 27,694 were sent between August 1, 2022, and May 26, 2025. Of those, only 15,039 were returned. These figures are alarming because New Zealand has one of the world's highest bowel cancer rates, and it is the second-highest cause of cancer. That means an average of about eight people a day are being told they have it. It's not just an older person's cancer either, because more than 350 people under 50 are diagnosed annually. Many people know someone who has survived bowel cancer or died from it, and much has been done over the past eight years to try to get in front of the problem. The National Bowel Screening Programme started in July 2017 and has been introduced by all the former 20 district health boards, with Bay of Plenty being the last. People are invited to join the programme at 60, and are then sent a free home-test kit every two years until the age of 74. The Government is lowering the eligibility age to 58 nationwide from March. It has, however, been criticised for axing plans to lower the age for Māori and Pacific people to 50. The national charity Bowel Cancer New Zealand wants the screening age lowered to match Australia, where it is 45. It is, understandably, unhappy with the Government's slow progress. The media and advertising also play important roles in raising awareness. There are countless news articles in the media, and the national bowel screening multimedia campaign launched in July 2022 encourages people to take part in screening, emphasising it is free, quick and simple, 'and you can do it at home'. The good news is that Health NZ credits the campaign with raising awareness. But perhaps among the most powerful weapons for raising awareness are the individual patient stories. Kiwis such as Tauranga survivor Rachael Ferguson, who was 32 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in December 2020. She has been 'clear' since surgery in February 2021. Then there's Rotorua father Matthew Keogan, who was 49 when he was diagnosed in 2021. He was told to get his affairs in order and say goodbye to his family as he might live only another three to six months. He has made a miraculous recovery after chemotherapy and immunotherapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Last month, Northland's Cheryl Waaka, a former Black Fern and mother of two teenagers, talked about facing her toughest opponent yet: stage 4 bowel cancer. There are plenty of other personal stories on Bowel Cancer NZ's website, each offering an insight into that person's journey, each offering hope and each helping drive a greater understanding. All these people are brave and inspirational. So, given there's been a national screening campaign, heightened awareness, personal stories, and a lowering of the screening age, a reasonable question remains: Why would people fail to do something simple that costs them nothing but could save their lives? Reasons could include fear, stigma and people simply not wanting to go through what they perceive as the unpleasant procedure of having to collect samples and send them off. However, it would be fair to say some people probably can't be bothered, are ignorant or believe it won't happen to them. Whatever the reasons, the Bay of Plenty and Lakes figures are appalling. As survivor Rachael Ferguson rightly says, there are 'so many people under the age of 60 that are screaming out to have those kits' that eligible people not returning them is simply 'wasted resources'. The Government needs to lower the screening age further. At the same time, everyone eligible needs to take up the offer. It could save their lives. Bowel Cancer NZ chief executive Peter Huskinson has the final word. 'That free test in your mailbox doesn't just detect cancer – it can stop it before it starts,' he says. 'Don't leave it in a drawer. Put it by the loo and get it done.' Wise words indeed. Sign up to the Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
