Census fail magnifies health need

A rural Marlborough community fighting for better access to doctors is hopeful a census botch-up may work in its favour.

The Pelorus Area Health Trust (PAHT) had been awaiting census figures to support a petition for greater access to medical services for its rural patients. PAHT chair Roz Freeth said reports of miscounted dwellings in the Sounds could mean there were more residents unable to access a doctor than the figures showed.

‘‘It is starting to produce a big picture of this whole community of people that are under the radar and are not able to access the sort of services that we all consider a right.’’

The Pelorus area – including Havelock and the Pelorus Sounds – has an estimated population of about 3000 – however only 1300 are enrolled with a doctor. The Havelock Medical Centre operated five days a week until the resident doctor moved on in 2006. It was then bought by Springlands Health Clinic, which operates out of Havelock two days a week.

The petition, launched last year, addressed two concerns: the limited days in Havelock and the fact many residents were unable to sign on to a medical practice due to full books.

Stats NZ recently apologised for missing about 1000 houses in Marlborough in the census figures released last month, about 700 of which were in the ‘‘relatively isolated’’ Marlborough Sounds. A Stats NZ spokesperson estimated 23 per cent-70 per cent of the uncounted dwellings were potentially in the Pelorus area.

Freeth said that since the petition closed in March, the doctor hours in Havelock had dipped below two days a week. ‘‘We were consistently having a two-day service each week prior to the end of last year, that is no longer the case.’’ She believed it was unlikely the demand for a doctor was not there, especially given the ageing population.

‘‘When the medical centre lost its fulltime doctor – its five-day-a-week service – the population was supposedly the same and the appointments were enough to keep one GP busy five days a week.’’

Freeth said the trust was ‘‘disappointed’’ the census had not been able to provide more definite figures.

The petition had gathered 458 signatures before it closed in March, and the trust now plans to deliver it to the district health board, Marlborough Primary Health and the local MP within the next six weeks.

Springlands Health Clinic practice manager Mark Mclean said Havelock generally had a doctor for two days each week but occasionally less.

‘‘It is based on staff numbers rather than booking numbers,’’ Mclean said.

‘‘One of the biggest problems is not that people don’t want to deliver the service, but the resources and trying to get GPS to the area.’’

Mclean said Springlands Health had open books, addressing one of the petition’s demands.

PHO chief executive Beth Tester said Springlands would continue its service in Havelock, and there had been ‘‘positive murmurings’’ about increased services and trials of virtual consultations.

As a result of reduced enrolments at NMIT in 2019, funding from the Tertiary Education Commission would drop by about $2 million in 2020, he said.

NMIT had not had a funding increase in a decade, despite rising staffing costs due to things like the increased cost of living, Sloan said.

‘‘A review is a last resort for NMIT.

‘‘I acknowledge that this is an unsettling time for NMIT, but we need to continue to do what’s right for the sector, students, and staff.’’

The consultation would close on November 5, with a decision due after November 8, he said.

The revelation on Wednesday came as Nelson MP Nick Smith said he had opposed the Government’s reform of the vocational education sector at a presentation to Parliament’s Select Committee on the Education (Vocational Education and Training reform) Amendment Bill.

Smith described the impact of the merger of New Zealand’s 16 polytechnics into a single national campus network, as ‘‘the nationalisation of NMIT’’.