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By local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon
Two Westport-based West Coast Regional Council representatives have expressed "impatience" at ratepayer criticism of the council's role in protecting the town from future flooding events.
Both Buller representatives have instead paid … View moreBy local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon
Two Westport-based West Coast Regional Council representatives have expressed "impatience" at ratepayer criticism of the council's role in protecting the town from future flooding events.
Both Buller representatives have instead paid tribute to the behind the scenes scramble by the regional council to seal the business case for the proposed $26 million Westport flood scheme.
At this week's council meeting, Cr Laura Coll-McLaughlin queried the state of the tender documentation for urgent retrospective maintenance on old flood works on the Buller River upstream of Westport at Organs Island, and near O'Conor Home.
It followed ratepayer approaches indicating the high level of interest in the town, she said.
The council has already approved that urgent work which if not done leaves Westport vulnerable to another big flood event.
Coll-McLaughlin said she and fellow Westport Rating District Committee member, regional council chairman Allan Birchfield, had been outspoken "about how urgent that work is" aside from the proposed flood scheme proper.
"I also think that the amount of work our staff are dealing with for a council of our size and our budget is absolutely phenomenal.
"I'm getting a little bit impatient with criticisms we get back. I think we maybe don't blow our trumpets sufficiently but quite frankly the work (staff) are doing, I am profoundly grateful for."
Chief executive Heather Mabin said the small council's staff were under "an incredible amount of pressure".
In particular, the Westport scheme technical advisory group for the business case along with council's in-house staff had faced extraordinary pressure.
Some of the constraint would be taken up under the new staff secondment arrangement via the Greater Wellington Regional Council, in place for the several of the Government's Infrastructure Reference Group (shovel ready) and other projects the council had, Mabin said.
Cr John Hill said he too was receiving a lot of local feedback "and I get quite annoyed when I hear the word 'procrastination' being used".
"I'd like to get the message out to our ratepayers, the last thing we can be accused of is procrastination."
Coll-McLaughlin said she heard from ratepayers that they liked efficiency and for the council not to be overstaffed.
However, it was doing its best to respond urgently within limited resources, "when we have business cases to prepare and urgent work to meet and then flooding events in February and heavy rain now".
The council has to meet the proposed flood scheme business case deadline set by the Government, by the end of this month.
"I'm getting impatient with comments like 'oh Covid, they're using it as an excuse' when we can see behind the scenes that is far from the case -- and I just want that noted to staff," Coll-McLaughlin said.
"I cannot believe what [staff] have managed to achieve to timeframes that we have had put around us."
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From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Te Nikau Hospital in Greymouth is being tested to capacity as Covid-19 continues to rage through the region.
West Coast District Health Board operations manager Philip Wheble said those presenting at the hospital had "quite complex" needs.… View moreFrom local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Te Nikau Hospital in Greymouth is being tested to capacity as Covid-19 continues to rage through the region.
West Coast District Health Board operations manager Philip Wheble said those presenting at the hospital had "quite complex" needs.
"We're having some challenges around our inpatient activity, around capacity at Te Nikau," he told the board's advisory committee meeting.
Te Nikau was generally about 91% full at the midnight capacity measurement time, meaning there was not a lot of room to make more beds available for incoming patients overnight.
The 91% capacity figure essentially meant there were three spare beds at peak time, Wheble said.
Rest homes were also under pressure.
"We do have some issues with access to aged residential care. That is being resolved now."
Covid-19 had made for "a challenging time... [but] the teams have done a remarkable job".
Mr Wheble noted the GP shortage in Reefton, which would be without a doctor throughout winter. An "enormous effort" was planned to find a locum.
Currently the DHB was using GP staff from its other practices to conduct a once a week clinic in Reefton, combined with nurse and telehealth appointments. Telehealth waiting times for Reefton patients needing to consult a doctor were currently four days. Reefton is 80 kilometres away from the nearest GP surgeries at both Greymouth and Westport.
Wheble said the reopening of Ziman House rest home at the Reefton Hospital had been postponed until August, "at this stage".
Advisory group chairman Peter Neame asked if the board had done anything yet about instituting some regional training given the national nursing shortage impacting on the board's capacity to operate facilities, such as at Reefton.
"If you don't have some sort of regional training, you are going to be seriously short," Neame said.
Wheble said work was beginning to bring back some West Coast-based training for enrolled nurses and aged residential care support staff "with a capped training programme".
However, general registered nurse training was more of a problem as it was mainly polytechnic or university-based.
From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Additional orthopaedic operations for West Coast residents have been carried out in private hospitals in Christchurch in the past month, as Greymouth hospital attempts to reduce waiting times exacerbated by Covid-19.
An update to the West Coast … View moreFrom local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Additional orthopaedic operations for West Coast residents have been carried out in private hospitals in Christchurch in the past month, as Greymouth hospital attempts to reduce waiting times exacerbated by Covid-19.
An update to the West Coast District Health Board advisory group said additional Ministry of Health funding had enabled additional hip and knee joint surgeries privately during May and into June, to reduce some of the longer waiting times at Te Nikau Hospital in Greymouth, particularly in orthopaedics.
Additional plastic surgery bookings had also been secured with the extra funding.
The waiting list for plastic surgery first specialist assessments had reduced from 68 patients in February to 14 in May.
The plastics surgical waiting list had benefited as well with 39 patients currently waiting, 26 of whom had surgery booked in June.
West Coast DHB general manager Philip Wheble said 35 major joint operations had been done off the West Coast.
While the extra plastic surgeries would significantly reduce the long wait time, for orthopaedics there would still be people on the waiting list over the time limit.
"The impact of the Covid-19 lockdown and distancing restrictions in August and September 2021, and again from February 2022 onward have influenced our results," Wheble said in an update.
"General surgery, paediatric surgery and urology are on year to date delivery targets, but there have been fewer elective cases able to be delivered in the disciplines of cardiothoracic, ear nose and throat, gynaecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, plastics and vascular surgery."
The West Coast DHB had 165 patients waiting over 120 days for their first outpatient specialist assessment at the end of March -- 107 orthopaedic cases, along with plastics (22), urology (17), rheumatology (8), cardiology (6), respiratory (4) and general medicine (1).
Telehealth had been used wherever possible for specialist assessments.
There were 101 Coast patients waiting over 120 days from their first surgical assessment until surgical treatment, at the end of March, spread across orthopeadics (75), urology (10), plastics (8), dental surgery (5), opathalmology (2), and paediatric surgery (1).
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From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Funding to run the Buller health shuttle has been granted for one year.
The shuttle was provided by the Buller branch of the Red Cross from 2012, to transport people 100 kilometres from Westport to Greymouth for medical appointments.
It operated … View moreFrom local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Funding to run the Buller health shuttle has been granted for one year.
The shuttle was provided by the Buller branch of the Red Cross from 2012, to transport people 100 kilometres from Westport to Greymouth for medical appointments.
It operated with support from Buller REAP, which co-ordinated patient requested bookings.
"The Red Cross are transitioning away from providing this and similar community transport that they have run throughout the country; the Buller service being the last in the process," a planning and funding update to the West Coast DHB advisory group said this week.
The Buller service was taken on by St John at the beginning of this month and is now known as the Kawatiri Health Shuttle.
"The service has been invaluable to those people who have faced transport issues over the years, and with St John now picking up service provision this is very much welcomed."
The Kawatiri service was funded for one year at this stage, based on Ministry of Health advice given to the board based on the transition to the new health system, DHB staffer Ben Hingston said.
They were "confident" the service would be sustainable beyond the transition period.
St John already operates a similar service in the Grey district and between Hokitika and Greymouth.
Board member Anita Halsall-Quinlan, of Westport, said it appeared the service was being run based on staff availability and asked if there were set days and times it would be available so it retained a broad reach into the community.
Hingston said St John would try to match accessibility to the shuttle with patient appointment times, "but there are no set times".
Board member Helen Gillespie noted it would be reliant on St John being able to co-ordinate volunteer drivers and Hingston said it would be up to that organisation to facilitate the availability of volunteer drivers.
The service would continue to operate at no cost to passengers.
*****
Meanwhile, increased funding has enabled the West Coast District Health Board to double capacity of the Poutini Waiora-led kaupapa Maori Well Child Tamariki Ora services.
A report to the board's advisory group this week said increased funding had meant it would be able to increase staffing from a 0.5 full time equivalent position to almost fulltime, from the beginning of next month.
"The increase in funding will contribute to improved equity of access to kaupapa Maori services for whanau living across the West Coast."
The previous funding level had limited Poutini Waiora's ability to provide a comprehensive service to whanau.
It was expected the additional staffing would improve Poutini Waiora's capacity to deliver Kaupapa Maori Well Child Tamariki Ora services to more whanau and enable "more intensive support" to those already engaged in the service.
*****
Public health funded 'health improvement practitioners' and health coaches will be soon starting work at medical practices in Hokitika and Greymouth.
A report to this week's DHB advisory group said the West Coast Primary Health Organisation's first round of recruitment for the Integrated General Practice Primary Mental Health and Addictions Service had been successful enough to cover practices in the two towns.
Practitioners and coaches would work as part of general practice teams providing people with "immediate support and tools" for wellbeing.
The first practitioner and coach began work at the Westland Medical Centre on May 23.
Additional practitioners would be joining Coastal Health and the Te Nikau Health Centre in Greymouth on completion of their training in July and August.
Recruitment had commenced for the role in Buller.
From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Revegetating the historic Buller River overflow channel to lessen the risk of floodwaters spilling into the Orowaiti River and hitting the eastern side of Westport township is being proposed.
It is one part of the proposed $26 million Westport flood … View moreFrom local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:
Revegetating the historic Buller River overflow channel to lessen the risk of floodwaters spilling into the Orowaiti River and hitting the eastern side of Westport township is being proposed.
It is one part of the proposed $26 million Westport flood protection scheme.
In the 19th century the Buller River was straightened using a bypass, taking out a meandering section, creating Organs Island upstream of Westport.
The original meandering section remains, but the Westport Joint Rating District Committee last week heard the new scheme proposes to take back the leased Organs Island area and to revegetate it.
Using it as a riparian buffer would reduce the "split" in flow from the river's main channel during floods, consulting river engineer Gary Williams said.
The idea was to redirect more flow away from the Orowaiti and lessen the ongoing need for rock maintenance at Organs Island.
Williams said the area required "constant management" with a lot of rock put there over the years to keep the Buller River in the 19th century diversion.
Adding more vegetation would "split the flow" more down the main channel "without having a strong fixed rock wall over that long length".
"The idea is in the end that nature will do most of the regeneration," he said.
Hydrological consultant Matthew Gardner said vegetation could act as "a significant buffer" against flow.
"What we found with the model, the Buller River is at capacity and for every increase in flow more comes down the Orowaiti. This vegetation actually reduces that."
It was in fact going back to the method put forward in the 19th century to manage the area, Gardner said.
The other aspects in the scheme are the proposed realignment of Abattoir Creek, east of Westport, which would reduce flood flows from the east towards the town.
Ruled out is dredging the lower Buller River, making a direct cut to the sea from the Orowaiti Estuary, excavating a causeway to protect the Snodgrass Road residential area, adding culverts in the Westport to Ngakawau railway at Stephens Rd, and constructing culverts on the embankment near State highway 67 near the Orowaiti Bridge.
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Congratulations to Berhampore, Wellington which took out the overall sweetest spot! You can check out the full list of winning … View moreEver wondered where the sweetest places to live in Aotearoa are?
Stuff’s Homed team has done some serious data crunching to crown the seven best spots for 2022.
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