Te Rito o Rongokako has opened on Avenue Rd East in Hastings. Photo / Paul Taylor
Te Rito o Rongokako has opened on Avenue Rd East in Hastings. Photo / Paul Taylor
Te Rito o Rongokako aims to be the ambulance at the top of the cliff.
Te Whatu Ora’s new $3.6 million child health facility - which has on its staff New Zealand’s most accomplished and recognised paediatrician, Dr Russell Wills - opened in central Hastings in September.
Encompassing child development, child and adolescent mental health and developmental paediatric services, it’s a facility that’s situated in the community and designed to care for those in that community who need it most.
“We love our hospital and we love our hospital colleagues, and the hospital is part of the community too,” Wills said.
“But, for some whānau, it’s a place of bad memories.”
So a conscious decision was made to deliver these services away from the Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital and create an environment that wouldn’t intimidate its client base.
“The families we see these days often have really complex needs. Many of the families are poor, they don’t have access to transport and they often need services across several of our services," Wills said.
Eighty staff work out of the new premises, caring for children from Māhia to Norsewood and everywhere in between.
Most referrals come directly from schools, and many are children from Māori and Pasifika backgrounds. That’s acknowledged in the facilities at Te Rito o Rongokako and the way services are delivered.
What that’s also enabled Wills and the staff to do is see children from an earlier age.
“And that’s great," he said.
“We want to be seeing these kids when they’re younger, and we can [then] make more of a difference before behaviours set in that are hard to shift.”
Wills is a former Children’s Commissioner who’s also held a number of high-profile and prestigious paediatric roles nationally and internationally.
Te Whatu Ora paediatrician Dr Russell Wills in his Hastings office. Photo / Paul Taylor
But, being Hawke’s Bay born-and-bred, this is the community he knows best and is eager to help most.
“The key theme is the most disadvantaged families and children have the highest needs,” Wills said.
“Lots of our service is delivered in the home, because you learn more about children and families when you’re in the home, and we can engage with families much better if it feels safe for them.
“Lots of the parents who come to see us - and grandparents - have issues too. Physical health, mental health, addictions, violence; those kinds of issues are very common in child health services in Hawke’s Bay, so we’ve all had to upskill so we can ask those kinds of questions of families and link them to the services they need.”
Attracting and retaining medical staff in provincial areas is a constant challenge, but Wills believes Te Rito o Rongokako will make that part of the job easier.
“We’re so lucky with the talent we’ve been able to recruit," Wills said.
“These are people who could work in private practice for a lot more money. All of them have that kind of talent and could all do easier jobs.
“They choose to work here because they know the difference that they make. And the thing is, we do it together.
“So many of these families have needs that no one clinician can manage on their own and, because we have great teams that support each other, they have a strong sense of vocation and achievement.”
* Clarification: The first version of this article said that Russell Wills “runs” the facility. The facility is a hub of 80 Te Whatu Ora staff from various vocations and does not have a specific leader.
