Small town NZ in crisis: the need to rethink regional development (pn644.)

Wairoa (Photo supplied, Wairoa District Council)

The small town problems of Wairoa discussed below by Alex Braae are typical of  much of the country. And the solutions are reasonably obvious.  If it's the absence of a dentist, have mobile dentists servicing a number of nearby small towns, or provide a free bus service to travel to the nearest town that does have a dentist, as is the practise between Porirua and Wellington for hospital treatment.  

Small towns lose dentists and other services because of their small population. For some towns, tax incentives, low rental costs, income support and other incentives could  attract new business leading to more jobs and an increase in population.  I recall the old teaching service where incentives were offered to teachers to do country service (see note below). But some towns will never attract new business. They can only hope for subsidised links to larger towns that do have the services required.   

The recent Covid-inspired working from home initiatives, the widespread business use and dependence on computers, and the prospect of four-day working weeks all offer opportunities to rethink the relative sizes and economies of all our towns and cities. 

 A government agency, with links to local councils, employers, chambers of commerce and citizen promotional organizations,  charged with exploring possibilities for regional development could result in reduced congestion in our larger cities, inter-dependent networks of middle sized provincial towns, and better serviced small towns.  

 -- ACW    

Note. One and a half or more years credited to the retirement pension for every year served. And delayed promotion beyond a bar on the salary scale if you did not do country service. This stick and carrot approach kept our country schools well serviced,  and could be applied to many employment and job situations 

Wairoa dental service withdraws, and a quiet regional crisis

Alex Braae in The Bulletin from The Spinoff

 Wairoa dental service withdraws, and a quiet regional crisis

Imagine driving for hours to get a chronic toothache looked at

Why it matters Wairoa lost their dentist service, commercial rent relief won’t be revisited by government, and four year term referendum looking likely.

It can be hard enough for key workers to live in the big cities, with the high cost of living. But for many smaller towns, the struggle is getting the services they provide at all. For today's Bulletin, we're going to start with an excellent hyper-local story about the town of Wairoa losing dental services, with next to no option for people who live around there except to drive for hours. The story by Stuff's Georgia-May Gilbertson gives a clear insight into the sheer added difficulty and inconvenience that unfairly comes from living in a poorer town, away from the main centres. You might recall that last time The Bulletin mentioned Wairoa, it was a story about driver licencing services being non-existent. This is not an insubstantial place – almost 5000 live in the town itself, and almost twice that in the district around it. 

There is a community hub for those under 18, but that doesn't help adults who need treatment. And services that are promised in these parts of the world don't always get delivered. The Gisborne Herald had a story recently about a service around the school in Tolaga Bay, in which the community waited more than a decade for any consistency or continuity in a programme. 

All the while, and for a variety of reasons, oral health outcomes continued to be comparatively worse in the region, which could in turn have lifelong consequences for those people who missed out. It also comes at a time when hospitalisations for dental issues are becoming much more common, in part because of the high baseline prices of dentistry, and people are routinely turning to home jobs in an attempt to fix them. Communities that lack these services are likely to be disproportionately Māori, and it compounds inequalities. 

Many different medical services are affected by similar problems, including roles with universal need like GPs and midwives, and particularly for anything specialist. With Covid-19 border restrictions, it's harder to recruit people from overseas, reports Stuff – even with border exemptions for essential medical workers. 

Meanwhile, rural schools have long struggled to find enough teachers, and are now instead turning to online classes instead, reports Radio NZ's John Gerritsen. Finding teachers to work in far flung places is particularly difficult for specialist subjects like maths and scientists. Previously these schools also relied heavily on overseas recruitment to fill gaps, and in fact you might remember two years ago a massive international recruitment drive was launched. All the while, people in those communities continue having to make do with not enough. 

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