Nelson’s new chief medical officer says the region is healthier than most other parts of New Zealand but its ageing population is a “major challenge” that health officials will continue to deal with.
Dr Nick Baker was appointed as the chief medical officer for Nelson and Marlborough at the end of last month and will formally take over the new role at the end of November, replacing Dr Heather McPherson.
His job is to be a “mouthpiece” for patients, putting clinical concerns in front of the board and district health board management. He says Nelson’s ageing population is the biggest concern for the region’s health services.
“If you look at it, we’re going to have fewer young people to support a growing ageing population and we know that in the five years before people get a serious illness and die they are going to be high users of health care. So if we can delay those five years for as long as possible and expect people to be physically active and fit into an older age group then that is a good thing.
“The health of the elderly is a major challenge to us.”
That view was backed up by Grey Power Nelson president Neville Male who says the issue is a “sleeping giant” as health services, housing and other services for the elderly could be strained under the weight of too many older people in the region.
“He’s spot on there, we just can’t allow our population to blow out to the numbers we’re seeing now with the people coming here to retire, without having something in place that identifies the issues associated and how it will be addressed.”
Neville says the issue is his top priority and Grey Power is working on a plan in place to help deal with the growing population of older people.
But Nick says our weakness is also our strength and although there are a lot of elderly in Nelson, they tend to be healthier here than in other parts of the country.
“We’re quite lucky that we have a healthy community and we have a longer life expectancy than many parts of the country. We have a climate that supports a longer life expectancy and we’re a less deprived community. There are a lot of things going our way.”
Along with a healthy community Nick says Nelson also has a strong level of staff which helps keep Nelson’s customer satisfaction reasonably high.
“One thing that’s different from many other parts of the country is that we have senior medical officer-driven care a lot of the time. We have very, very few junior staff that means people can get a more coordinated service and because we have relatively low staff turnover. People can get care from the same person for a number of years and that is a good thing.”
A paediatrician who has been in Nelson for 20 years, Nick says the region is also lucky to have high quality GPs and he believes Nelson is in a good position health-wise. “A lot of what I’ll be trying to do isn’t about new services, it’s about existing services working better together.”
