[Editor’s Note: Since this column was published in May/June Baybuzz magazine, the Government announced a $164 million spend to upgrade 24/7 urgent care services in Counties Manukau, Whangārei, Palmerston North, and Dunedin, and new daytime urgent care services in Lower Hutt, Invercargill and Timaru. No mention of Napier.]

One in every three people in Hawke’s Bay lives in Napier. We may be geographically small but we are the centre of the region, with the Port and the Airport, major industry and local government. We are a significant visitor destination and home to 67,000 people. 

But our health care provision is poorly lacking and any promises coming from central government to remedy the situation are thin at best. 

The way we care for our most in need is a measure of the overall wellbeing of a community. This matters more when we have experienced first-hand what it is to be cut off from lifelines. Individuals and organisations speak often of resilience, but for us we have recent lived experience of what that actually means. Beyond strategies and hypotheses, here in Napier we know the practical, factual importance of resilience. 

That means having the services and resources we need locally to look after ourselves. 

Decades ago, when the Napier hospital closed, promises were made by the government of the time to always have an appropriate healthcare service for the people of Napier. Commitments were made about the level of health care services we would have here in Napier. Those assurances have disappeared. When the promise was made the population was 55,000, and even then the bare minimum was provided. Now, with a population vastly increased, the healthcare provision is reduced even further. 

Of all the many things local government is tasked with, healthcare is beyond our remit, but we do have a role to advocate and lobby for what our community needs. And it falls to us to ensure we are resilient against whatever comes our way, whether pandemic, natural disaster or systems failure. 

We are the elected representatives of our community and so we speak on their behalf. I have heard loud and clear that ensuring Napier has adequate health care is a priority. We want a commitment to increase health services to the level originally promised. 

The more I listen and look into this issue the more I see ‘adequate’ means having an urgent care doctor onsite, it means having an overnight service, it means having community services, and specialist and outpatient clinics. It means having a service that is accessible. It’s too easy to bat the conversation away by saying how close the hospital in Hastings is. But that comes from a place of privilege, assuming everyone has a car, time, resources, assuming there’s no rush, assuming there’s no emergency. 

What we are asking for Napier isn’t ‘moon money’. We are realistic about things like maternity, we know there won’t be a birthing annex back in Napier. We know over-night stays are off the table. 

We do want the healthcare solution in Napier at least back to what it was before the health centre was stripped out further. 

Many have suggested a hub-and-spoke model would work well here. We do benefit from having a major hospital one city over. But the links between what the community needs and that single centralised offering need to be carefully considered. Community voice – patient voice – needs to be central to decision making. Listening only when voices are riled up and protesting is not really hearing what people are saying. 

I am contacted frequently by people who despair over what we are left with in the way of core services in Napier. I hear from patients, but I hear from health professionals too. As their representative I want to amplify their views, and do whatever I can to make sure they are heard by decision makers. 

I am not a sole voice in all of this. There are many community leaders who share my concerns. They too are ready for action and I am driving hard to pull leaders together around one table, as a working group, to lobby the government on behalf of all 67,000 people based here. 

The one positive outcome of central government’s move to minimise health services is that it has solidified our opposition to that decision. It has ignited action. Many are now stepping outside their usual responsibilities to fight for the good of our whole community on this issue. Healthcare is a national issue. 

On a local level, there are many here who have been fighting on this front since the closure of Napier Hospital was first announced thirty years ago. Over the years other priorities have overshadowed this battle, but now we all need to come together in a unified voice because we are worth more, our people deserve more, we know what it is to be cut off even from our closest neighbourhoods. 

Before that happens again, we must ensure we are resilient, and we can withstand whatever comes our way. That starts with speaking up to make sure we have what we need.