Wellington Region's second Pacific-led medical centre opens in Hutt Valley

A 27-year vision for a Pacific-led health centre in the Hutt Valley has become a reality.

The Epuni Medical Centre, owned by Pacific Health Service Hutt Valley (PHSHV), is only the second Pacific-owned and led general-practice in the Wellington Region.

It opened its doors on Monday, marking an important moment for Pacific primary healthcare in Aotearoa's capital.

The only other Pacific-led health centre is in Porirua.

The centre represents a long-term commitment to strengthening Pacific ownership and leadership within primary healthcare.

The PHSHV's aim is to provide high-quality care that is welcoming and accessible to everyone.

Before its doors opened to the public a blessing ceremony led was held by Revered Au Liko, who is also the chairperson of the PHSHV's Board.

Rev Liko paid tribute to those who envisioned the centre.

"Today is the combination and fruition of a 27-year dream of Pacific health services which started by three Pasifika nurses and our CEO, Mr Nanae Muau, and various boards over the years.

"I am currently the chairperson of the board, and I've been chairperson for the last 12 years, and this has always been a dream carried by successive boards," Liko said.

He said that Pacific communities want to have a stronger role in shaping and delivering their own healthcare.

"Access has been one of the huge barriers to our people getting quality healthcare, and for a lot of our unenrolled people, who either can't afford to be with a GP of who find it difficult to communicate GPs, we are trying to meet the gaps that a lot our people are falling through," he said.

Dr Tua Lealaiauloto Taueetia-Su'a was one of the nurses who wrote the proposal all those years ago.

She told RNZ Pacific why she felt it was important to have a Pacific-led health centre.

"In the time that I had been working at Hutt Hospital for a while. I noticed there was a need for our own people to service our own people, like Pacific people for Pacific people," she said.

One of the nurses who helped start the journey 27 years ago sadly passed away.

Members of the Hutt Valley's Pacific community joined funders at the blessing ceremony.

Health NZ national chief of Pacific health Pauline Fuimaono-Sanders said the significance of the new centre's opening is the increased capacity of Pacific-led health services for the area and the wider Hutt Valley.

"Because for the central region, this will only be the second Pacific GP clinic that the central region has right now, so very significant for providing services for Pacific peoples," she said.

PHSHV general manager Candice Apelu Mariner admits the journey to building the new centre had its fair share of early challenges.

But she said over the past three decades relationships have been built and lessons learned.

"I think every part of the system has worked to enable this to happen, meaning our funders, like Te Whatu have seen the vision of investing in more Pacific providers to establish GP services because we are still dealing with our Pacific having negative outcomes.

"So, when I say partners, you need allies, you need people who also believe in your vision both Pacific and non-Pacific, so establishing this hasn't really been a challenge this time around."

She said what has certainly been a challenge is securing a workforce as the Pacific clinical workforce is small.

"We know that 2.8 percent of the total clinical workforce is Pacific, so there are very few and most of them are in Auckland.

"One of the challenges for any new services is its workforce. But to by-pass that, we worked really hard in the last four years to build the workforce, because we always knew that at a certain time we will set up a GP practice. But we needed to grow our own workforce so that's something that we really thought hard about and put a plan in place," Mariner said.

The medical centre will form part of PHSHV's wider two-site model in the Hutt Valley, extending the organisation's ability to provide more connected care across clinical and community settings.

Mariner said Pacific care takes a holistic approach, considering not just a patient's medical condition but also other factors in their life.

"Because everyone deserves Pacific care, [whether you are] Pacific or non-Pacific , you just don't look at the individual, you look at the family and the environment, and everything that person comes from, and that's the Pacific worldview, it's that collective responsibility, reciprocal care and that's why we are unique."