Community response to birthingunit promise exciting

Community involvement is needed to ensure the success of a Wanaka birthing unit, writes Jacqui Dean.

THE Wanaka community is already getting behind plans for a new birthing unit in the town and that is important because it is public involvement that will ensure the unit’s longterm viability.

A group of local people has been quick out of the blocks, already looking at forming a charitable trust and raising funds, along with meeting Wanaka midwives and mothers to gain their input.

I think it’s exciting that just a week after National announced that it would develop a birthing unit in Wanaka, the community is already keen to move the proposal forward.

The new unit will require a capital investment and to fund this, National will provide a dollar for every dollar raised by the local community, in addition to funding $500,000 in estimated annual operating costs.

However, it is public involvement in this project which will ensure its future success, and local ownership and community buyin are crucial in developing what will effectively become a significant regional asset.

A group of astute and enthusiastic locals is already looking to form a charitable trust and raise funds and it has told me that it intends to work collaboratively with Wanaka midwives and mothers, to ensure that the facilities, and the level of service, are fit for purpose.

The group describes itself as nonpolitical — and to me this is significant, because it means that, regardless of the results of the next general election, this group and the funds that it raises will continue to be earmarked for Wanaka’s birthing facility.

I have also been given support by Queenstown Mayor Jim Boult, who says the birthing unit is a good initiative for the area.

For the past two years, I have spent hundreds of hours campaigning for change, highlighting local concerns in Parliament, travelling to

Wanaka to meet and support mothers and midwives, and pushing for the Southern District Health Board to do better.

I have written several letters to Health Minister David Clark and to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, but each and every time they have brushed off these community concerns and done nothing to improve services.

That’s why last week’s announcement that Wanaka will get its own birthing unit under a National government was such a momentous decision.

The demands on any government are great because every community has its own priorities and needs.

I’ve worked hard to ensure that Wanaka’s voice has been heard in Wellington and I’m pleased that my National Party colleagues have agreed that a birthing unit is a priority for this town.

It’s true that there is an ongoing shortage of midwives across Central Otago, and indeed the whole of New Zealand, and I concede that staffing this new facility could be challenging, yet I remain confident.

There are some Wanaka midwives currently working in other parts of the region, and ose midwives may be tempted to work closer to home if a purposebuilt facility was established in the Upper Clutha.

It’s high time families in Wanaka and Upper Clutha had access to a highquality birthing unit and that’s what I am committed to.

With community involvement, particularly around local families and midwives, I believe that this new facility will be a welldesigned, welcoming and safe place for local mothers to finally be able to give birth in their hometown.