Forums look at health
Today, three public forums on health will be held in Paraparaumu, Raumati and Waikanae, the result of a partnership between Capital & Coast District Health Board and Kapiti Health Advocacy Group.
The focus group was initiated and supported by the mayoral office to help identify and advocate for better health services. The Community Hospital Petition that was launched saw the fastest community support for a petition with 22,000 signatures gathered within just six months. Dedicated volunteers manned stations in public places and malls and literally walked the streets.
The process tapped into a long-suppressed discontent about the lack of affordable and accessible medical services in Ka¯ piti. Out of this came individual horror stories. What it revealed was the Crown health service bureaucracy, ensconced in its Wellington ivory tower, had little idea what was happening in Kapiti and what was needed. The petition was literally a vote of no confidence in the status quo. This political message was received by the powers. It has taken two years of solid work by the community-minded volunteers on KHAG and the professionals of CCDHB to hammer out a partnership. The mutual aim is to work together to co-design a health service that’s efficient, cost effective and customised to Ka¯ piti’s needs.
As the petition rolled out and gained moment there were those who said it was a multimillion-dollar pipe dream. As organisers of the petition, we knew the request for a community hospital was not a demand for a monument of bricks and mortar but a demand for access to services closer to home.
If the quantum of new services reached a critical mass to require a building to house them in, then we welcome that. A hospital remains a medium to long term goal. Access to services closer to home is a counterfactual to those who believe in the God of Centralisation. Those who rationalise that centralising medical services in Wellington is both efficient and cost effective for the whole region. Let’s test that. Data shows that last year 6205 Kapiti residents went to Wellington Hospital’s emergency department, with 55 per cent of those arriving by ambulance. But 44 per cent of the 6205 were not admitted. The emergency travel experience would be all the more arduous given 47 per cent were aged above 65 years.
One part of the work being done by CCDHB and KHAG is aimed at providing targeted new medical services that will see patients treated here and so reduce the numbers forced to go to Wellington. So there is strategic need for decentralisation and we need to work with CCDHB. And the partnership is beginning to work well.
While this partnership between the CCDHB and the community is being “codesigned” it may be useful to review this within another framework. NIWA has provided evidence that when the region is struck by a big earthquake the regional landmass will be broken into seven sections resulting in the failure of communication links. The question I have posed to the CCDHB decision makers and the Wellington Region Civil Defence Emergency Management Group is this: What efficiencies are gained by centralised health services in Wellington during normal times, and what efficiencies in services can be gained by decentralised services during a major earthquake? And how do we achieve a practical balance?
While we are continuing to work with CCDHB, it may be useful to escalate this question to the Minister for Civil Defence and the Minister of Health.
Finally, the work carried out by KHAG is an excellent example of the ability of the committed and talented individuals in our volunteer sector to work together with Crown agencies to create productive community outcomes.
Council’s role in this is to facilitate and support, and maybe sometimes get out of the way for this to happen. I note that this year’s Local Government NZ Annual Conference in Wellington has again focused on topics related to localism.