New Brookfield medical centre sees local return to childhood doctor

Dr Ngaire Ellis was Robin Hales' GP when he was a child. Photo / George Novak

Robin Hales has come full circle when it comes to healthcare.

The long-time Brookfield resident has already enrolled at the suburbs newest GP with the same doctor who cared for him as a child.

About 31 years ago Hales would go to the Brookfield Medical Centre for his healthcare.

He remembers coming down the hill on Bellevue Rd as a 10-year-old and turning left to go to the doctors', which was where the New World carpark now sits.

Three decades later he is returning to the newly opened medical centre in Brookfield and his childhood doctor.

Hales' first doctor was Dr Somerville but a young Dr Ngaire Ellis also worked at the medical centre.

Ellis later became his doctor for five years between the time Somerville and she moved overseas.

When the centre relocated to Bureta Rd in the early 2000s, he moved with it.

It was still called Brookfield Medical Centre for some time before it was renamed The Doctors Bureta.

Brookfield father Robin Hales has just signed up to the area's newest GP. Photo / George Novak

When Ellis returned to Tauranga and set up at Bureta she signed on again as Hales' doctor. He said she was a caring woman who knew his medical history and continued to grow with him through his life changes.

Which is why as soon as he found out Ellis had moved to the recently-opened Family Doctors Brookfield, he followed suit - this time by choice.

Hales, now 41 years old with three children, lives on Millers Rd and said it was an added bonus the practice was closer to home.

"It's always good keeping your same doctor from when you are young, it's very easy."

He has already been to see Ellis for an appointment for his daughter.

Hales said if the new centre was anything like the one he went to in his youth, he believed it would be an easy to access centre with a big focus on family.

Local woman Sandra Grogan has live in Otūmoetai for the last 50 years and been going to the local pharmacy for the same amount of time.

The new medical centre would "definitely" be a positive for the community, as it was close to the main shopping centre, she said.

Dr Ngaire Ellis was Robin Hales' GP when he was a child. Photo / George Novak

It was something the community was missing, she said.

She recently met Ellis and said if she did not already have a female doctor, she would enrol herself at the new practice.

However, she thinks she will take her 12-year-old granddaughter there as she does not have a doctor, and it is an easy centre to get to.