A remote hospital accommodating dementia patients in the tiny East Coast town of Te Puia Springs has been left without power, water and any physical way out since Monday.
Video / George Heard
A remote hospital accommodating dementia patients in the tiny East Coast town of Te Puia Springs has been left without power, water and any physical way out since Monday.
Mental health staff have watched emergency helicopters fly over them in frustration and despair for days as they gradually ran out of food.
The Māori-run Ngāti Porou Hauora hospital in Te Puia Springs - a town 100 kilometres north of Gisborne with a population of about 400 - has been reachable only by helicopter since Cyclone Gabrielle hit.
With all road access cut off, the mental health staff at Ngāti Porou Hauora have been coping on their own to provide emergency, civil defence and medical needs, while eking out small bursts of power and water from their fuel run generators.
Patients have listened to music in their rooms to pass the time while waiting for help. Photo / George Heard
With all road access cut off, the mental health staff at Ngāti Porou Hauora have been coping on their own to provide for emergency, civil defence, and medical needs. Photo / George Heard
Mental health clinician, Te Ara Puketapu, told the Herald they urgently want emergency services and the government to know “we’re still here”.
“I think the first couple days we were all right. We saw the helicopters coming through and we were quite hopeful, but they flew over us, and we had no power, water service, internet, and lots of us have kids and we’re starting to run out of food,” Puketapu said.
“We’re doing the best we can. [We want people to know] that we’re still here. We’ve been listening to the radio and every day we’ve listened to it we’ve kind of been forgotten about. All the surrounding towns have been mentioned but us. But I suppose they’ve realised that they don’t know what’s happening.”
Puketapu said the strain on domestic needs in the tight-knit town was also reaching breaking point.
“We have nowhere to keep [food] frozen. My house smelt like dead meat and I have like blood leaking everywhere, and we have no water to even clean that up. It’s getting a bit harder, we’ve been told we’ll have no power for another week. I just washed my daughter with a little bit of bottled water,” she said.
Mental health clinician, Te Ara Puketapu, told the Herald this afternoon they urgently want emergency services and the government to know “we’re still here”. Photo / George Heard
A Fire and Emergency helicopter was sent this afternoon to help fix broken water pipes to the hospital caused by slips from Cyclone Gabrielle.
Mental health team leader for the Te Puia hospital, Hine Haig, said they “haven’t lost any lives so far and we’re very grateful for that”.
“What’s been happening here? Lots. We’re water drenched but we’ve run out of water. How does that sound?” Haig said.
“We’ve got no water here. I don’t understand the intricacies of it but the main thing for my role is keeping our whanau well out in the community and we’ve got an amazing team working on keeping our whanau well and fed and watered as best as we can.”
Haig said today was the first time power came on for some residents in Te Puia since Monday.
“We’ve got intermittent power. The reason we haven’t got it all the time is because it’s about fuel. Because our power supply is off obviously, so we’re working off generators for the [energy] and the water. So without the fuel it’s a bit sad,” Haig said.
“Our maintenance team have been limiting the use here and making sure we’re just using the bare necessities. You know, Ngati Porou, we’re resourceful. It is tough. When you’re at that stage of your life you deserve the finer things in life, and when I’m talking about finer things I’m talking about water and power.
SH35 near Tokomaru Bay has a river flowing down the main road. Photo / George Heard
“For them to be living through this at their age, it’s not a nice situation for any of us, but we’re making the best of it.”
Signs of this optimism could be heard out the open windows of the Ngāti Porou Hauora hospital as patients listened to jazz music in their rooms.
Haig said the emergency had shown the strength of the community and their love for one another.
“Te Puia’s feeling alone… but you know what, in each of those communities the whanau and the hapu have come together to make it hum the best way it can. I think our best resource is who we are,” she said.
“We’re a little bit disconnected. We’re running our civil defence our own way, and it’s an amazing way of running it. We’re just running it as an ordinary day at the marae.”
