Community health provider calls for urgent rethink on rural health: ‘Issues need to be addressed now’
From local democracy reporter Adam Burns:
A Canterbury community health service provider believes the Government is ignoring rural healthcare inequities despite problems continuing to be voiced “loud and clear”.
Concerns continue to mount around the omission of rural communities within the Government's health reform roll-out, which has dismayed rural health leaders.
The Pae Ora Healthy Futures Bill was recently considered at a parliamentary select committee and did not list rural people as a priority population group.
Canterbury health service agency Waitaha Primary Health said rural health outcomes trail those of national urban populations and the outcomes are even worse for Māori.
Chief executive Bill Eschenbach called upon the Government to prioritise rural health in the planned legislation and to urgently address problems rural communities were facing.
“These inequities are not a surprise and as an organisation we have been proactive in working with our national partners to ensure the voice of rural people in terms of health outcomes is heard loud and clear,” he said.
Some 750,000 rural people generated 50% of New Zealand’s GDP, he said.
He added rural disparities were frequently highlighted in Heather Simpson’s Health and Disability Review, the same report which proposed centralisation of the health sector.
“We note that rural disparities or inequities were highlighted in the review 84 times,” he said.
“Waitaha’s concern is that if rural is not identified in the legislation, will Health NZ and the Maori Health Authority be accountable for rural health outcomes.”
There was further unease around the current health workforce, which has “retracted over recent years”, with access to health interventions not being as readily available to those in rural areas.
“These two issues need to be addressed now,” Eschenbach said.
Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey echoed concerns of rural voices being lost in the transition.
“As the Canterbury District Health Board gets disestablished there is a real threat that rural and regional voices will be lost in this new mega health entity run out of Wellington,” he said.
Four hospitals in Canterbury were temporarily closed in March as the Omicron outbreak bore down on the country, sparking community fears the move was permanent.
An after hours medical facility in Rangiora also remains entrenched in the planning stages after it was first confirmed in 2020.
“Waimakariri residents should be worried that commitments to open both after-hours and Oxford hospitals could be overlooked in the restructure,” Doocey said.
*Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
Waimakariri district plan faces more delays amid changing rules
By David Hill, Local Democracy Reporter
Changing Government legislation is causing headaches for council staff, as Waimakariri’s new District Plan is set to be delayed again.
Waimakariri District Council development planning manager Matt Bacon said he was relieved when the last of the public hearings ended last week.
But with final council reports due on December 13, staff will have just two working days to present the final District Plan on December 17. A district plan helps to control and manage the development of the district or city.
‘‘We are working through what it looks like and we will update the council at its meeting on December 3,’’ Bacon said.
‘‘But we will likely seek another extension from the environment minister and the Resource Management Act (RMA) minister.’’
The council first notified its draft District Plan in September 2021, but within months legislation was introduced with new medium density residential housing standards (MDRS).
‘‘We needed to call for further submissions and we had to create a separate hearing panel to consider the plan variations to allow for the MDRS,’’ Bacon said.
‘‘We have tried to merge the process as much as possible, as well as looking at re-zoning and incorporating other new legislation.’’
When the draft plan was first notified there was no National Policy Statement (NPS) for Indigenous Biodiversity, but an NPS was introduced - and then replaced.
The Natural and Built Environment Act came into being last year and then repealed, and then there is the NPS on Urban Development and the Greater Christchurch Spatial Plan.
The Government is now working on more RMA reforms and Environment Canterbury is working on the Canterbury Regional Policy Statement.
And then there is the Fast-Track Approvals Bill, which includes three proposed housing developments in Waimakariri - two of them outside of the future urban development areas identified in the Greater Christchurch Spatial Plan.
All three housing developments in the Bill have been included in submissions to the District Plan, including a proposed 850-home development at Ohoka, near Rangiora, which is also subject to an Environment Court appeal.
‘‘We haven’t seen the detail, so whether it is the same proposals, we don’t know, but they are different processes so we have to just keep doing what we are doing, until we are told otherwise,’’ Bacon said.
‘‘It might just be a timing thing, but we just don’t know.’’
Bacon said delaying the District Plan until new legislation is in place is not an option.
‘‘We are looking at what we can control and having a watching brief, and we will look at transitional timings because we don’t always have to immediately change planning documents when new legislation comes in.’’
Planning manager Wendy Harris said navigating changing Government legislation is a normal part of council planning work.
‘‘If we waited we wouldn’t do anything and we would go nowhere.’’
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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