‘We want the hospital’ — Reefton group pushes for reopening

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:

A community trust to take over the closed aged-care facilities at Reefton is off the cards for now.

But the Reefton Health Action Group remains focused on pushing for the reopening of the aged-care wing of the town's former hospital.

The idea was floated initially at a meeting called by the Reefton Health Action Group (RAG) in December over the closure of Ziman House aged-care wing of the former Reefton Hospital - renamed Reefton Health in March 2022.

The former West Coast DHB closed the aged-care wing in March 2022 explaining it was a Covid management measure - although it later emerged Ziman had also been operating without the requisite number of registered nurses on site.

Ziman is yet to reopen with some staff in Reefton remaining on full pay.
The facility has been renovated and maintained ahead of the promised reopening.

Health NZ announced last month it intended to operate a day-based activity programme at the site from January for people being cared for at home, in lieu of Ziman not being able to reopen yet.

However, Health NZ confirmed this week the day programme has not yet started.

RAG spokesperson Helen Bollinger said a trust model was not the group's first preference for the reopening of Ziman.

"Most of the people are not keen. We would like the hospital people (Health NZ) to do their job and administer what was before," Bollinger said.

The trust idea had initially been explored to gain some traction with Health NZ, "thinking it was one way of speeding things up," she said.

"We wouldn't dismiss it altogether, but it's a huge undertaking."

The idea of a trust only applied to Ziman, not the wider primary care services such as the GP provided from the same site by Health NZ.

Bollinger said the RAG December 8 meeting heard from representatives of Westport's O'Conor Home Trust on the complexities of running aged care services under a trust model.

This included the challenge in recruiting registered nurses, which Te Whatu Ora repeated in December when explaining why Ziman House remained closed.

Bollinger said from what they heard standing up a similar trust in Reefton would be a huge undertaking.

"It's fraught."

Meanwhile, a RAG meeting this week was to discuss the next move in pushing for Ziman House to reopen, she said.

She said the agenda may include the existing Inangahua Wheelchair Van in the town to see how it might be supported by RAG under a new model.

"It could be possibly used to pick up people to bring people into this so-called activity programme."

However, the group was holding onto Ziman being reopened fully.
"We don't want an activity thing anyway; we want the hospital."

In December, Health NZ West Coast associate director of operations Phil Wheble said there were no plans to cede its Reefton medical centre to a private provider or trust.

However, a Health NZ spokesperson said this week they were open to handing over Ziman to the community.

"We are happy to engage with RHAG or any other interested party regarding the establishment of a trust to run the aged care facility if this is what is being proposed," Health NZ said.

Regarding the promised day activity programme at Ziman, Wheble said in a statement they were still working on it.

"We are working with our staff and union partners and once the workforce is confirmed we will be able to provide a new start date for the day activity programme," he said on January 24.