Rotorua: Ōwhata Medical Centre gifted to Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao Trust

Ōwhata Medical Centre is now being managed and operated by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao Trust. Photo / Andrew Warner

Local iwi are the new owners of Ōwhata Medical Centre after it was gifted to Ngāti Pikiao in an “unprecedented” gesture.

Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao Trust chair Mapihi Raharuhi says the change in ownership on Monday this week will provide a greater opportunity for health inequities to be addressed after not-for-profit health organisation Pinnacle gifted the centre to the trust after more than five years of ownership.

Pinnacle’s chief executive Justin Butcher said the centre would “better serve the community” under the ownership of Ngāti Pikiao.

A notice on the Ōwhata Medical Centre Facebook page - dated September 11 - said the centre had been gifted to Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao Trust “following fruitful discussions” between the trust and Pinnacle.

Speaking to the Rotorua Daily Post, Raharuhi said the gifting was “unprecedented” .

“I think that just goes to show the level of trust and courageousness from both Pinnacle and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao.”

She said the trust had a “long association and relationship” with Pinnacle, which had supported the Ngāti Pikiao GP clinic.

“It really is just the natural progression that these kinds of discussions were occurring.”

Ōwhata Medical Centre has been 'gifted' to Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Pikiao Trust. Photo / Andrew Warner

She said patients would see “far more ways of working that fits with the community that they live in”.

“We have a large population of Māori who find accessibility and affordability is an issue. We want to try and figure out innovative ways of how we do that with whānau.”

She said it would provide greater opportunity for health inequities to be addressed.

Raharuhi said Ngāti Pikiao had always been innovative in delivering services. For example, in the early 1990s, it was delivering outreach to marae-based communities.

“Covid taught us outreach is something we’ve got to explore ... accessibility is about sometimes finding ways of taking the service to the people.”

In a statement, Butcher said Pinnacle had owned the practice for more than five years.

However, it was “no secret” the workforce crisis had made recruiting health professionals “incredibly difficult,” he said.

Through its relationship with Ngāti Pikiao, Pinnacle was having ongoing dialogue about how it could better serve the community.

“Over time, that kōrero led us to the decision to gift the practice to Ngāti Pikiao who also have their own GP service, to create a single-scaled health response.

“The sum of the parts will be greater than the individual components and that’s what we’re seeing in the gifting, where Ngāti Pikiao can bring together the two practices – Ngāti Pikiao Health Services and Ōwhata Medical Centre.”

Butcher said it would further enable Ngāti Pikiao and Te Arawa to support their own hauora aspirations.

“It doesn’t mean Pinnacle is walking away, we’re still their PHO [Primary Health Organisation]. We’ll continue working and supporting them alongside this process for the journey ahead.”

Former owner and long-standing GP at Ōwhata Medical Centre Dr John Armstrong pictured in 2019. Photo / Andrew Warner

Former owner and long-standing GP at Ōwhata Medical Centre Dr John Armstrong said he was “very pleased” about the change.

“It’s been a difficult environment in general practice for the last few years since Covid ... and Ōwhata is certainly no exception to that,” Armstrong told the Rotorua Daily Post.

Armstrong said there had always been inequity in Māori health.

In spite of measures to address this, “we never succeeded in addressing it totally”.

He said it was better to give Māori the ability to make decisions about their health.

Armstrong said Ōwhata had a large population of Māori and it was a “great opportunity” for them to address existing inequities.

He said Pinnacle had a “genuine desire to improve Māori health” after it took over the practice from Armstrong in 2018.

Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.