In the teeth of a struggle
‘‘One day in the next 10 years it’s going to be a very sad life living in rural areas if this sort of thing keeps happening.’’
Craig Little
Wairoa Mayor
AHawke’s Bay mayor is predicting a ‘‘sad life’’ for rural New Zealand if smaller towns don’t start getting more government support in the face of vanishing services.
The northern Hawke’s Bay town of Wairoa hasn’t had a dental service in more than a year, with residents having to drive either 94km to Gisborne or 117km to Napier for help.
And earlier this month it lost its third bank in three years, leaving town folk with few options.
‘‘It’s a shocker, simple as that,’’ said Wairoa Mayor Craig Little.
‘‘The Government needs to start looking at what’s going on, because if Wairoa keeps losing all these services, then it’s simply not sustainable.
‘‘It’s scary,’’ he said. ‘‘One day in the next 10 years it’s going to be a very sad life living in rural areas if this sort of thing keeps happening.’’
Dentiq was once Little’s dental practice, along with 2000 other patients in Wairoa. But the business was sold in March 2020 to Esskay Dental Ltd, and is now open only one day a week for denture check-ups.
‘‘It’s very disappointing, and I know there’s a shortage of dentists, but the owner really needs to start thinking if he’s the right man for the job.’’
Marion Terry, owner of Wairoa’s Queen Street Practice health clinic, said access to dental health had been ‘‘sliced’’ since the dental clinic was sold.
‘‘It’s had a huge impact on the complete health of our population – they did suffer when there was a dentist because of the cost, but now they suffer because they have no option,’’ she said.
‘‘We’re just cornered. We just live in the hope that a dentist will see us and think ‘well, this is a little gold mine’.’’
Terry said since the closure there had been a huge increase in phone calls to the health clinic and abscesses on a ‘‘daily basis’’, and the clinic was now covering ‘‘a wide range of dental consults’’.
‘‘We’re getting gingivitis, and people are coming in for antibiotics and painkillers.’’
She said the ages of those coming into the clinic ranged from late teens to those in their 60s and many requiring care were Ma¯ ori.
Hawke’s Bay Hospital dentists have had to increase visits to the Wairoa community dentist hub to care for patients living in Wairoa.
The owner of Esskay Dental Ltd has been contacted for comment but has not responded.
Little said the closures of ANZ in 2018, BNZ this year and Westpac earlier this month were also huge setbacks for the town.
‘‘I was at the ATM the other day and I couldn’t believe the amount of people taking money out, because they don’t know how to use an eftpos machine. So their bank will be under their mattress or something.’’
The only bank left in the town was ‘‘a bit of a Kiwibank’’, Little said.
‘‘If you want a personal loan, you need to travel to a branch to do that, so that’s a day wasted again. Also, if anything goes wrong with your card, like it stops working, or you need a replacement, that’s another problem.’’
Little described public transport in Wairoa as ‘‘non-existent’’, with one bus that came through every three days.
BNZ spokesperson Michael Burgess said the decision to close the branch was not taken lightly.
‘‘Our customers simply aren’t visiting some of our branches - in the last six months, fewer than 375 people have used the Wairoa branch on more than one occasion. Nearly threequarters of the customers who have accounts based at that branch are digitally active and the number of customers who use the Smart ATM there has risen significantly.’’
Westpac services ended on April 1 and a new Smart ATM was to replace the existing one with a ‘‘range of banking options’’ such as transferring money and paying bills, said the bank’s senior communications manager, Will Hine.
ANZ has been contacted for comment.