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RNZ News
4 days ago
- Health
- RNZ News
Expanded Lower Hutt medical centre to cater for 'daylight hours'
The Lower Hutt After Hours Medical Centre will move to the former Te Awakairangi Birthing Centre at the end of July. Photo: RNZ / Ruth Hill A former birthing centre in Lower Hutt, which was controversially mothballed four years ago due to lack of funding, will house an expanded after-hours medical service. Lower Hutt After-Hours Medical Centre - the only drop-in clinic for more than 100,000 Hutt Valley residents - is often forced to close its doors early to new patients, because it is unable to see everyone before 10pm closing time. Manager Mark O'Connor said the shift to new premises at the former Te Awakairangi Birthing Centre at the end of July would help alleviate some of the pressure. "The new clinic has 10 consultancy rooms, instead of the three-and-a-half we have now, and its waiting room is triple the size," he said. "Patients may still have to wait, but at least they won't be queuing in the wind and the rain, as they are now sometimes." The centre had also received Government funding to extend its opening hours to "daylight hours" during the week. Currently, its hours are limited to 5.30-10pm, Monday to Friday, and 8-10pm on weekends and public holidays. From late this year or early next year, it was planned to open from 8am every day. "Until now, Hutt Valley has been the only metropolitan area without daytime urgent care, so that's a big change," he said. "We never had the facility before here. "If you know our old building, we would never have been able to cope with that during the day, but with this new facility, it gives us that opportunity. We just have to resource it." Recruitment of additional staff could be a challenge, but the attraction of a new clinic would help with that. Lower Hutt After Hours Medical Centre is leaving its current cramped premises next month. Photo: RNZ / Ruth Hill "We need to close at 10pm, because most of my doctors are working at practices during the day, so we can't keep them too long." The new clinic was also upstairs from a radiology centre, which meant patients with suspected fractures would no longer need to go to Hutt Hospital's emergency department. Frustrated patients have taken to social media to complain about the clinic closing early. One woman - who was turned away last Friday, after trying to get an appointment with her own GP all week - said the doctor shortage was the biggest barrier. "If they can fit more people into the premises, but they don't have more doctors to do the hours, then they're going to have the same problems." A plan to turn the old Te Awakairangi Birthing Centre into a special care unit was developed when Labour was in power and was heavily supported by then-MP Chris Bishop. The birthing centre, which was owned by a charitable trust, closed in 2021. Te Whatu Ora took over the facility and planned to open a first-of-its-kind transitional care unit for sick babies in 2023, but this never happened. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
Sharp jump in Covid-19, respiratory infections
Photo: 123rf Environmental Science and Research (ESR) data shows flu and Covid infections are on the rise, with a sharp jump in hospitalisations for severe respiratory infections across Auckland in the past week. Meanwhile, GPs warn they are already under pressure. After phoning her GP clinic several times last week trying to get an urgent appointment, one desperate Lower Hutt resident decided to go to Lower Hutt After-Hours Medical Centre on Friday. "Google suggested it was busiest from when it opened 5.30pm to 7pm, so I went down at 7pm, and there was a sign up saying they weren't taking any more patients today." Her post on a community Facebook page attracted more than 100 comments, including from many patients who had had the same experience. She returned the next morning as soon as it opened at 8am, and finally got treatment. "The staff do the best they can, and it's not anything to do with the people doing their job. There are just not enough people to go around." Lower Hutt After-Hours Medical Centre was the only walk-in clinic for a population of more than 100,000 people. Manager Mark O'Connor said they treated about 45 patients a night on average, but there were times they had to turn people away. "Especially coming into this time of year with winter, we're just overloaded. We can have 20 or 30 people queuing up at the door at 5.30pm and we'll have three, even four, doctors on at times. But we just can't see everyone." ESR data showed hospitalisations for severe respiratory infections jumped more than 50 percent in the week to 1 June, although the rate remained about the same as last year. Calls to Healthline for influenza-like-illnesses increased, but were lower than at the same time last year. There were five reported outbreaks of respiratory illness: three in aged-care facilities in Nelson-Marlborough, Capital and Coast and Bay of Plenty, and two in early childhood centres, both in the Wellington region. O'Connor said seasonal pressure was compounded by the GP shortage. "Because of some patients not being able to get into their doctor during the day, we're seeing a lot more than just the usual winter type thing. We're seeing a lot more mental health and more other injuries." The clinic was moving to larger premises at the end of next month, and had funding to extend its hours from the end of the year. "The next step is to find the staff." Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard. Photo: supplied Health NZ national chief medical officer Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard said patients who could not get in to see their GPs - or could not enrol with a GP at all - often resorted to hospital emergency departments (EDs) . "We know there is a direct correlation between pressure on EDs and primary care services that are struggling. But EDs are not set up in the same way - it's not there to deal with respiratory illnesses, the more basic but high-volume illnesses that general practice is so well set up for, so that is a challenge." Health NZ was prepared for the inevitable winter surge - lining up extra staff, "optimising" beds and running vaccination campaigns, she said. More than 1 million New Zealanders have already had flu vaccinations this year, while only about quarter of a million are up-to-date with Covid-19 boosters. "That's similar to last year, we would really love it to be higher. The challenge is there are some people who don't have confidence in vaccination or find it difficult to access healthcare. And for those people we are really trying to do more in terms of outreach, working with community providers." percent20Region&log_or_linear=linear.=eighteenMonthsButton ESR wastewater testing showed Covid infections were on the rise again - up 75 percent in a week (between 18 and 25 May), well ahead of reported cases. South Auckland GP Allan Moffitt told First Up current variants were "not as virulent", but Covid was still dangerous for people with low immunity - and flu could also be deadly . "I've actually had several patients end up in hospital with influenza, so it's not a nice bug to have - it's not just the common cold." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Amongst the Wolves review – drills and chills in Irish gangster thriller
Irish director Mark O'Connor's film is a two-for-one deal. It starts out as a serious well-researched drama about an army veteran with PTSD sleeping rough in Dublin, and ends in bloody revenge, with Aidan Gillen in ultraviolent mode and gangsters drilling holes into each other's kneecaps. The movie is grounded by a rock solid performance from the film's co-writer Luke McQuillan as former soldier Danny, who loses his family and home after a tour in Afghanistan. There's a scene early on that feels horribly truthful about the day-to-day reality of being homeless: late one night, three lagered up youths humiliate Danny for a laugh – forcing him in front of the camera as they shove a coin into his hand. The shame on his face as they film him is harder to watch than the electric drills later that come later. Flashbacks show us how Danny's family life fell apart. There was an accident involving his little boy when Danny was looking after him; so when he meets a teenager called Will (Daniel Fee) sleeping in woods, Danny's instinct is to protect him – a second chance to get it right, perhaps. There is nothing particularly new about this story, but McQuillan plays Danny with real care. Here's where Gillen muscles in as a gang boss called Power, a man who takes a spider's pleasure in getting people exactly where he wants them. Teenager Will was dealing drugs for Power, until his mum flushed his stash down the loo. Now he's in trouble. Gillen plays Power with his trademark soft-spoken menace, but somehow it doesn't stick here, even with the added nastiness of his character having a sadistic habit of killing dogs. At times this is a film that doesn't feel like quite enough, at others it's a little bit too much. Amongst the Wolves is on digital platforms from 2 June.
