Te Tara o Te Whai held a community meeting in Waihi in March to hear from the community about what changes they would like to see in their community.

The following are highlights shared by the community:

• Accessibility needs for more accessibility and availability to health care services, practices in Waihi are not taking on enrolments, “my husband has to travel to Paeroa to see a GP.
• Support with palliative care. 
• Having specialised care services delivered in our community, radiotherapy. 
• Only two services offer emergency services. We don’t want to travel out of our community
  for care.
• Remove the cost of prescriptions. We now must choose medication or kai. 
• We need safe spaces for our young people to access the services when they need to. 
• Be able to access care options virtually that don’t charge for data usage. 
• To have free family planning services.
• Need for early access to mental health support.
• Have open access to services.
• Funding models create collaboration barriers
• Need transparency of funding 
• Workforce, need for more carers to support our older people
• Not enough workforce in our community
• More community nurses and GPs are needed
• Shortage of midwives