Rural health care faces big changes

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 291, 20 June 1989, Page 1

Rural health care faces big changes

Change is sweeping through the public health service and Waimarino Hospital staff are welcoming it, despite the threat the area's hospital faces.

The staff and other Waimarino health pro-( fessionals are meeting regularly to discuss proposals on how to provide a better health care service to the area. The proposals will go to the Wanganui Area Health Board, who have asked for ideas on services in the light of their forced budget cuts. The board is to set up a rural health care centre in the area and staff have been studying how such a service could operate. Waimarino Hospital Principal Nurse Eve Rush is very positive about the prospect of change. She says the hospital based care offered at the moment is

inadequate and they could provide a better service for the same money. Community based care She says the staff are behind the proposal which essentially aims to shift the emphasis from hospital based care to community based care and reduce unnecessary hospital admissions. "If we could have nurses and home help visiting patients every day, seven days a week, there are many people that could stay home, and would be better off staying at home," says Eve. She says the reason many people, esTurn page 2

Rural health

Frompagel pecially the elderly, are admitted to hospital is because they can't cope at home. They also want to shift the emphasis from the present "picking up the pieces" looking after just sick people to helping people to stay healthy. "It's better to help people take responsibility for their owri health," says Eve Rush. "And bring them in to hospital when they do get sick." She says they are looking at the area as if starting from scratch to work out what services are nefeded and how best to provide those services, rather than looking at cutting services. The rural health centre would be based at the hospital under the proposals being formulated, says Eve, with other health professionals in the area using the centre. Statistics She says the group

are gathering statistics to back up their proposals and to help them improve their ideas. "We've found, for instance, that some people are travelling 45 minutes just to get to Waimarino, let alone the trip down to Wanganui, so the idea that we can do without hospital beds here is wrong," she said. At present the maternity annex has four beds and this should stay the same if not increase, says Eve Rush, especially since Waiouru's annex has closed. "I would like to see the maternity care offered improve here ," she said. She says of necessity the number of beds in the general ward should be cut, because they are under-utilized and cost intensive. * How many beds the Rural Health Centre will need has yet to be worked out but the staff's proposal in-

cludes the retention of enough beds to cater for emergency patients, the terminally ill, for stabilizing patients before they travel to Wangamii Base Hospital and for recuperating patients. "The staff have looked at this fairly realistically to see what we do need, with the board's strategic plan we could see the Waimarino Hospital is not going to survive," said Eve. "But as it is the hospital doesn't give effective health care and is too costly." Staff are still working on their proposals, which they want ready for the board in "a few months" because the rural health centre is to be established by June 1990. The group was to meet yesterday to further discuss the proposals and Eve says if members if the public have ideas now is the time to make them known.