Iwi join forces with WellSouth to offer GP services in Invercargill
Hokonui Rūnanga manager Terry Nicholas says about 2500 people in Invercargill have no access to GPs.
“That’s not humane, is it? Somebody’s got to try and improve that quality of life and care.”
The Hokonui Rūnanga, Waihōpai Rūnaka and Awarua Rūnaka have joined forces with WellSouth to open a new general practice, after-hours service and medical centre in Invercargill for unenrolled patients.
The practice will be set up at the WellSouth office in Clyde St in the coming months, while a plan for a purpose-built facility, offering the gamut of health services, is developed.
Preventative health care was vitally important to help whānau avoid getting so sick they needed hospital care, Nicholas said.
And providing access to quality health care was part of iwi’s responsibility under its partnership with the crown, he said.
Nicholas envisioned the future medical centre offering complementary health services like dentistry, podiatry, physiotherapy, and oral health care, alongside Whānau Ora services.
While the nuts and bolts of the partnership, including the shareholder agreement, needed to be worked out, Nicholas said the practice could be up and running within a month – although WellSouth has indicated that finding staff was a challenge.
The next challenge would be working out the investment deck and finding a suitable location to build the new health centre.
Terry Nicholas
“It’s a challenge, but it’s exciting,” Nicholas said.
The project had the potential to offer a training platform to attract doctors south, and the opportunity to develop a new model of care, he said.
“If it’s successful, there’s no reason why we can’t offer quality healthcare across our areas and support other medical fraternities.”
The three rūnaka had always considered offering a GP service, Nicholas said, and his team were already offering GP and oral health assessments to members – including some from Invercargill – in a purpose-built facility.
WellSouth chief executive Andrew Swanson-Dobbs said iwi contacted the WellSouth board to help solve the GP shortage problem in Invercargill just one day after Government announced it would establish a Māori Health Authority.
The primary health organisation was already developing a general practice for the city, but the partnership brought new ideas and expectations to the table and meant the future medical centre could offer more services than initially intended, he said.
Invercargill’s GP shortage was thrust into the spotlight in December when it was floated as one of the reasons why Southland Hospital’s emergency department was being inundated.
In a report to the Southern District Health Board’s Community and Public Health Advisory Committee last week, Swanson-Dobbs said Southland had only 58 GPs per 100,000 patients, while Coastal Otago had 64 and Central Otago had 73.
Differences in the way data was captured across the health system made it difficult to pinpoint exactly how many people were unenrolled, he said, but around 3665 Māori patients in Southland and Otago were not registered at a practice.
“This represents what we see as the future in healthcare: partnerships, collaboration and community connections – using our respective strengths and skills to provide the best care possible for our patients and whānau,” Swanson-Dobbs said.
Awarua Whānau Services chairwoman and Te Rūnaka o Awarua Charitable Trust trustee Louise Fowler said the partnership provided an opportunity to “not only pursue the aspirations and moemoeā of our tāua and kuia – both past and present – but support all our community in accessing and achieving hauora, for them and their whānau”.
Posted: 8 June 2021