Waikato women's health service to close

By CATHY ARONSON

HAMILTON - A Waikato women's health service will close after 14 years because of a lack of members and money.

The Women's Health and Information Support and Education Centre will close its drop-in centre on October 30, and its counselling service on December 22.

The Waikato Women's Health Trust decided to close the centre after its six trustees said two weeks ago they would retire by the end of the year. Attempts to replace them have failed.

Spokeswoman Martha Simms said the centre had struggled to survive since 1997, when it lost two health contracts worth $180,000 because the health dollar was being redirected to crisis rather than prevention.

"It's easy to measure when someone picks up the pieces, but it is hard to measure when you have avoided an illness."

The centre lost four staff members, cut costs and relied on donations, grants and minor contracts to stay afloat, but was still operating beyond its funded level.

The centre was contracted to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services to provide 350 counselling sessions last year, but had provided 770. A contract for 950 information queries resulted in 2900 information queries being dealt with.

Mrs Simms said the centre would not compromise quality for quantity.

The future looked dim for the centre as many contracts wanted a broader-focused service to meet the Government's goal of closing the gaps and family advocacy.

However, Mrs Simms said though the decision to close was sad it could also be time to "reinvent the wheel" and pave the way for a new service.

She said the centre had a strong clientele and invaluable health research to pass on to a new agency.

An independent committee has been set up to consider creating a new service.

Mrs Simms said that in the past 14 years the health service had changed and now provided many of the services the centre had been started for, though not uniquely for women.

Other agencies now provided information and quality control measures and health services were more committed to consulting consumers about delivery.

"We can be proud of what we have accomplished in the health sector and hopefully we have paved the way for future providers to take it one step further."

The centre had a fulltime manager, who finished last Friday, three part-timers and up to 20 volunteers.