Waimarino needs health care from north, says Taumarunui

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 614, 28 November 1995, Page 5

Waimarino needs health care from north, says Taumarunui

People living in the Waimarino should have the option of travel ling either to Wanganui or Taumarunui for medical treatment, said Rhonda Wood of the Taumarunui-based Stakeholders Group (SG) when she addressed the Ruapehu District Council at their November meeting. It was part of a report presented to Council by the group in support of a claim that Taumarunui should retain its existing health services and continue to negotiate with the Midland Regional Health Authority and Health Waikato. "Ruapehu District health services are now divided between southern and northern RHA's and this is not good for the Ruapehu community ... people in the south must have a choice to access services in Taumarunui", she said. "At the moment people in the south do not have that choice unless they

are taken ill or are injured in Taumarunui and it's a numbers game ... the more people who use Taumarunui the more chance we have of retaining and improving our services." Mayor Weston Kirton agreed that Council should look at the possibility of integrating health services between the north (Taumarunui under Health Waikato) and the south (Waimarino Health Centre under Good Health Wanganui). Chief executive, Cliff Houston, said that the question of health was a "cross-boundary" issue and that there was a need for Council to know in more detail about what is happening in the south. Cr Bob Peck stressed that there was a need for urgency as things were developing "very fast" in the south (the Waimarino Health Centre) and "saw benefits accruing from the two groups from both ends of the district working together".