Locals are marching in protest against the repeated closure of Buller Hospital in Westport over the past year.
Locals are marching in protest against the repeated closure of Buller Hospital in Westport over the past year.
West Coast residents marching through Westport in protest against the region’s “dire” lack of health care services are calling their united stand a historic day.
Those marching from midday today say their local hospital has been repeatedly closed, the area is only serviced by one ambulance and that residents will now be forced to rely on telehealth services for after-hours help rather than in-person urgent care clinics.
The organiser of the march, Malcolm Mulholland, who is also chair of Patient Voice Aotearoa, said the protest is historic because it unites a wide range of Buller district residents and medical groups, including nurses, GPs and specialist doctors.
Fellow organiser and Buller Health Action Group spokeswoman Anita Halsall-Quinlan said residents are worried about how they will access health services in Buller.
“Because we are so isolated from the rest of the country, access to health services, especially in an emergency, is quite literally a case of life or death,” she said.
“I know of people who have shifted away from Buller because they don’t trust that they will be able to get what they need if they are in an emergency.”
Patient Voice Aotearoa chairman Malcolm Mulholland (left) and his father George deliver a petition at Parliament earlier this month urging MPs to act to address the 'dire' state of Buller healthcare. Photo / Adam Pearse
Mulholland calls the lack of services a crisis.
A petition he presented to Parliament earlier this month that was signed by 3115 people from a range of Buller communities highlighted how the hospital had been closed 11 times in just over a year due to staffing shortages and issues.
Also of concern to Mulholland was the paucity of resources for the area.
He said there was only one helicopter that operated out of Greymouth and could not fly in bad weather.
Green Party health spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon also supported the protest saying the West Coast region only has one ambulance.
And it was operating more like a taxi, focusing “on transferring patients from Westport to Greymouth”, Lyndon said.
“To top it off, as of today, all urgent and after-hours clinics for the entire region will be closing.”
Sarah Dalton, the executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, also pointed to the closure of the after-hours clinics, saying West Coast patients deserve more than “on call” health services via a telephone line.
“The proposal to cut after-hours clinical care has been incredibly rushed and lacks consultation, risk mitigation and proper management,” she said.
“It is the responsibility of West Coast Health as the primary health organisation to ensure there is sufficient community-based, after-hours care for a community. This is especially important in a community like the West Coast which lacks paramedic services and only has one ambulance.”
Earlier this month at Parliament, Patient Voice Aotearoa’s Mulholland said he hoped MPs sit up and listen and help find solutions to the issue.
It also comes after Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora launched an investigation last month after the earlier death of a Filipino man at the Westport-based health centre in July, as reported by Westport News.
