“South Taranaki people are sick and tired of health always being on a change agenda. The Taranaki District Health Board is so named to take responsibility right across our province and not for just those who can drive themselves to a GP or Emergency Department in New Plymouth.”

“I will happily die in a ditch to retain the services we have and will always advocate for an extension to those services as resources and technology changes make the cost of service cheaper and more interventions available locally.”

“The spectrum of industry across our district means that between agriculture, energy and manufacturing means people will always be at risk from injury and we will always need to maintain a strong emergency presence here. Any suggestion that New Plymouth is close enough is intolerable.”

“We need to recognise the pressures on rural doctors and understand that we want to retain and replenish them for a sustainable health service delivery in South Taranaki into the future. We need to work together and be innovative enough in our thinking to keep ahead of those who would seek to close us down bit by bit and centralise health delivery on bigger centres.”

“In the provincial areas we recognise that the whole of New Zealand is only as big as a large city overseas – and while it doesn’t mean we can have every modern health speciality in our town, we CAN have a modern service which meets the needs of our working population.”

“That means a comprehensive general medical service including accident and emergency, after hours doctors, and top-class primary healthcare. When we do need to travel to New Plymouth for specialist treatment it is timely, convenient, cheap to use, with appropriate appointment times and transport arrangements.”

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