Marie de Groot reckons district nursing in Wanaka is unique. “District nursing here is very different to almost anywhere else in New Zealand,” she said. She attributes that not only to Wanaka’s relatively affluent society but also to the remarkable relationships Wanaka’s district nurses have with other local medical professionals.   

Marie is one of four qualified district nurses who works in the Wanaka district utilising her specialised nursing knowledge and assessment skills to care for a range of patients from treating wounds to palliative care. The District Nursing Service is a community based service providing a wide range of free care to patients in their own homes and at clinics.   

Marie trained in Dunedin and worked in the hospital there. “It was the best experience for becoming a District Nurse,” she said,” because you worked in every department and gained a breadth of knowledge.”

“We’re all “generalists” in this job,” she said.

Marie has witnessed the rapid growth of the district through her working experience. When she started nursing here 17 years ago, only two nurses were employed to meet the needs of the seven day service.

“Now there are four of us. We work a rotating roster 3-4 days a week including weekends, 8-9 hours a day and it’s constant, every single day,” she said. One nurse will work from the clinic at the Wanaka Lakes Health Centre while another is on the road providing home care. Between the two they’ll handle an average of 18 patients a day.

The seasonal increases in population always puts an enormous strain on the system, Marie said. “Our workload just quadruples.” As well as squeezing in a lot more patients into their busy schedules they also have to cope with congested roads, she said. “We know all the shortcuts yet our ability to get to our patients is still ridiculously compromised. Like every other local, we’re sitting at the roundabouts yelling at the car in front - ‘go, go now’.”

Complicating it further is a tax-payers funding system which doesn’t recognise seasonal changes to population. “So we go from 7,000 to 30,000 over the summer and we get no more funding or resources,” she said. “It’s not fair but it’s accepted.”

“The government pays us only for the 20-30 minutes contact time with our patients,” she said. “It doesn’t pay for the two hour journey to Makarora; or for writing up notes; or arranging referrals to an occupational therapist.”

She said the Central Otago District Nurses see a lot more patients than they are funded for by the District Health Board but they also pick up funding from ACC which pays the shortfall.

“We see the problems as they’re occurring and we stop them and keep people out of hospitals. We are the ambulance at the top of the cliff but we could do it so much better with more resources.”

The problem is, she said, those with the funding are making decisions which apply now. The pay-off for the ambulance at the top of the cliff is in 10 years, not next week, she said. “Governments are not prepared to think a decade down-track when this would actually come to fruition.”

As a nurse she has “learned to be very resourceful, and very patient, and accept what you can’t change - or go mad.”

Marie admits to have grown more cynical about the job but still derives enormous satisfaction from the good days.

“Our chemo ladies - they go through their treatments and we have a laugh. We make it as pleasant an experience for them as much as we can. We get to know them really well and try to make their treatment fit in with their lifestyles while they’re healing.

“You walk these journeys with people and at the end of the day you can feel good because you’ve actually achieved something.”

She said this district was “incredibly lucky” with the medical care provided locally. “We have great collegial relationships with the practice nurses and GPs. It means if we come across a problem, we can pass on the information to a practice nurse, she takes it to the GP and it can be dealt with that day.” In her experience that just doesn’t happen in the cities.

She believes the greatest single concern this district is going to have to cope with is its aging population. “If there’s one thing that makes me want to stay fit….”

“The one-downside to Wanaka is that it’s a real bubble. Everyone here has money; even the ones who say they haven’t, they still can afford to live here and go on holiday.”

She compares it with her early days nursing in Dunedin. Their relative affluence means, in general, local residents have taken better care of their health. “They don’t have the really chronic conditions.”

Most of the patients she treats are in their 70s, 80s and 90s “and they’ve reached that age in pretty good shape.”  Age has made them “a bit broken or dented” but they’re not chronically ill with complex conditions.

Money also makes them “well motivated to get better,” she said. They still plan to enjoy the next stage of life; they’ve got an overseas trip to look forward to. “That motivation makes a huge difference.”

Marie and her husband and children moved to Wanaka from Dunedin because both her and her husband’s fathers died young, at 62. “That’s a big wake-up call,” she said. “We decided we needed to do what we need to do because you may not get as much time as you thought you’d have.”

Her husband Rob (they’ve been married for 33 years) is the outdoors type, who holidayed in Wanaka as a child, and thrives in the Wanaka environment; and her children Abby and Patrick have both grown up in Wanaka enjoying activities on the lake and in the mountains.

Both children are pursuing careers (Abby teaches at a low-decile primary school in Porirua) and Patrick is an electrician, but the “empty nest” Marie and Rob were enjoying has had to adapt to the recent return of Patrick, who now works in Wanaka.

Marie stays fit, active and relaxed by walking the environs with the family dog Axel - who has a penchant for nipping over to the primary school, checking for any “leftover sandwiches” - and kayaking in the summer or taking out the jetski.

She and Rob also like to travel two to three weeks each year (although as Rob said “she organises it, I just come along”). She admits she likes doing the research and organising the trips early “to get the bargains. I like four star at three star prices.”

Marie said she’s content doing what she does at present but not she’s not sure about retiring in Wanaka. “I don’t know if we want to be that far away from medical services and I don’t know if it’s going to give me the lifestyle I want when I’m retired that I can afford.

“There are other places where there is cheaper housing, cheaper groceries, more affordable health care but we’ve looked around and I really haven’t found anywhere else. It’s a real quandary.”

PHOTO: Wanaka App