One year on from its official opening, Wānaka’s birthing unit, Rākai Kahukura has hosted 38 births and 131 families have used the facility for postnatal stays.

Albert Town resident Luciana gave birth to her second daughter, Kiara, at the unit eight weeks ago.

Her first child, Laia, was born in 2023, and Luciana had thought they would be one of the first families to have a baby in the (at that time) planned birthing unit. However a series of delays meant the unit didn’t open until the following year.

So Laia was born at the primary birthing unit in Alexandra, and Luciana recalls “counting the corners” on “that terrible drive” through the Cromwell Gorge while in labour.

Wānaka midwives celebrating the opening of Rākai Kahukura a year ago. 

The experience of giving birth the second time, so close to home in Rākai Kahukura, was “one hundred percent different”, she said.

“The birthing unit is 90 seconds’ drive from home. Having a facility like that in town made me feel so much more comfortable and confident,” she said.

“It was a really positive experience.”

The family did not need to change their toddler’s routine, and they enjoyed two nights at the postnatal suite.

“We were the only ones there - we were extremely lucky and the staff were so super caring,” she said.

“I was so grateful for all the people in the community who fought for so many years to have a facility like this here.”

When the Wānaka App visited Rākai Kahukura last week there was a family comfortably ensconced in one of the postnatal rooms with their newborn baby, staff busily employed about the unit, local midwives holding antenatal visits, clinics for a public health nurse and lactation consultant, and a steady stream of local women arriving for cervical screening.

Midwife Emily Sancha said the unit - “a hive of activity” - has been a game changer for local women and their midwives, providing “a soft landing” for not just births but also postnatal stays.

She compared the current facility - a fully staffed birthing unit with six midwives employed by Te Whatu Ora/Health NZ Southern to provide support around the clock, and antenatal clinics adjacent attended by another six independent midwives - to Wānaka’s situation just a few years ago, in 2018, with a sole midwife in a small office at the Wānaka Lakes Health Centre.

The closest primary birthing units were an hour’s drive away (in Alexandra and Queenstown), and local families returning from secondary or tertiary care did not have a postnatal option close to home.

Wānaka midwives, from left: Steph Mackie, Emily Sancha, Miranda Ma, Emily Brownlee, Jenni Corbett, and Peta Hosking. 

Health NZ Southern chief midwife Karen Ferraccioli told the Wānaka App the unit has been “a fantastic addition to maternity services in the Central Otago region since it opened in August last year and is a great asset for the community”.

A senior staff member at Rākai Kahukura said “women should feel really confident” attending the unit for care. It is the only fully staffed primary birthing unit in the region, employing experienced staff and with a pool of well qualified casual midwives for back-up.

The unit was fully staffed by the end of January 2025, although last December there were three days when staff shortages meant families could not access the postnatal care suites, and had to use the suites at the Central Otago Maternity Unit (formerly Charlotte Jean) in Alexandra instead.

No one has been declined a postnatal stay since then, Emily said.

The unit provides antenatal assessments - where Emily and the other five midwives are based, a birthing suite (complete with a pool), and four postnatal suites for families returning to Wānaka from elsewhere with their newborns. 

It also provides a scheduled blood clinic and telehealth services for pregnant women.

Emily said postnatal care “is crucial”, and the suites provide “a little bubble of time close to home” (between two to four nights) after birth for families with meals provided and round-the-clock support. 

In the past year there have been 25 helicopter transfers to tertiary medical facilities. Emily said the figure was not out of the ordinary for this population, and the transfers included 12 women in labour as well as a handful of babies needing secondary care.

“[Birth is] unpredictable,” she said. “If we can put people on the road we do - but we do live in Wānaka.”

Local families and midwives waited many years for a Wānaka birthing unit, and during that time several babies were born en route to Dunedin.

After many years of advocacy from local groups Te Whatu Ora Southern (formerly the Southern District Health Board) agreed - in June 2021 - to establish a primary birthing unit in Wānaka and a large Albert Town home was purchased and converted in the four years that followed.

Karen Ferraccioli said the unit is “easily meeting current demand”. 

“Utilisation and population forecasts show the unit is also well equipped to meet the demands of the growing Central Otago population in the future.” 

PHOTOS: Supplied