Mercy Hospice is proud to support Dying Matters Week 2025, led in Auckland by its community engagement initiative, Honohono Tātou Katoa. As the country comes together to spark open conversations about death and dying, Mercy is also sounding the alarm: New Zealand’s hospice system is at a critical tipping point.

With a projected 173% increase in annual deaths across Auckland by 2048* and a national funding shortfall expected to reach $196 million by 2043, the current model of care is unsustainable. Free, compassionate hospice care is under threat—and the burden is already shifting to families and communities.

In today’s world we have, by in large, become increasingly disconnected from the natural process of dying. As caregiving has shifted from homes to institutions, our collective death literacy has eroded—leaving whānau unprepared and unsupported in some of life’s most vulnerable moments.

Underfunding intensifies this crisis. With expert care becoming harder to access, patients and carers may suffer needlessly, and the consequences will ripple across the health system: increased strain on GPs, a rise in hospital admissions and mounting pressure on aged care and informal caregivers.

Mercy Hospice is proud to announce that Honohono Tātou Katoa—following a successful, independently funded three-year initiative—will now become a permanent and fully integrated within the hospice, alongside all other services. 

As a bold, community-led response to the growing end-of-life care crisis, Honohono Tātou Katoa stands at the forefront of Mercy’s commitment to compassion, connection, and systemic change.

Honohono Tātou Katoa views communities as equal partners in the long and complex task of providing quality healthcare at the end of life. Communities choose to work with Honohono Tātou Katoa and explore gaps in caring before, during and after death. Together the Community and the team then co-design, co-create and implement ways to reduce the gaps.

Palliative care everywhere with everyone is the vision. The team recognises that death, dying, grieving and caring is everyone’s responsibility. Through building connections, education and events the team is helping reimagine palliative care as something for all Aucklanders when the time is right.

Honohono Tātou Katoa is proud to bring Dying Matters Week back to Auckland in 2025. This week-long event is about creating safe, inclusive spaces for people across Aotearoa to connect, start meaningful conversations, learn from local experts, and find support to navigate grief, loss, and end-of-life planning.

It’s a powerful opportunity to reclaim death as a shared, natural part of life.

Join us from Monday 1st to Sunday 7th September at Auckland libraries and other community spaces. For a full programme of Events please visit Auckland Events .

* (Heather McLeod and Associates Ltd - Projections of SHOAA Population and Deaths).

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