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The Auckland City Mission has launched a new general health practice targeted at homeless people and being used largely by drug addicts and alcoholics, according to a GP who works there.
Nikki Turner, who is also a senior lecturer at Auckland University, said the service was necessary to provide help to people who could not afford healthcare.
"These people do have a large amount of physical and emotional stress but they manage to develop lives with meaning."
Dr Turner said mental illness was also prevalent in the patients she treated.
The new three-day-a-week service came to fruition on June 3 after a $210,000 funding boost from the Auckland District Health Board. It also survives on goods donated from the Wayfarers Lodge.
The service previously ran one day a week with one nurse. It now has two doctors and one nurse, who provide care for about 290 people.
The health board's manager of planning and funding for primary health, Deirdre Maxwell, said it was hoped the service would develop into an integrated nursing, dental and optometry service.
Dr Turner agreed, and said there was a huge range of unmet health needs, such as respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.
