Nelson Weekly
Feature
Locally Owned and Operated
Nelson City Medical Centre has recently shifted into new premises, just down stairs and across the car park from their previous residence above Price’s Pharmacy. A mixture of expansion and practicality, the new practice has seen owner Dr. Hamish Renwick Hilson come full circle after he initially commenced practice on the same site 28 years ago. Up until the relocation, Nelson City Medical Centre’s current premises were used by beauticians and a naturopath. The new arrangement has seen them switch, allowing the medical centre the space it needs to grow. “The access for our patients is also much better now,” says Dr Hilson. “Elderly folk, people in wheelchairs and mothers with toddlers and prams no longer have to contend with the stairs and the elevator.” The new centre has been split into three separate consulting rooms, their previous practice only having two, in order to accommodate Dr Hilson and two other doctors. The practice was originally established in the 1970s by Dr Leo Hannah. When Hamish purchased it, it was at 300 Hardy St in Burnham House, on the site of the current car park. Hamish moved the practice to 63 Collingwood St where he merged with the retiring Dr Duncan Harris’s practice, then in 1995 relocated to 363 Hardy St where the surgery was attached to a house, “enabling us to bring up our four young children.” Around 14 years ago the opportunity
was offered to them to move into the attractive rooms above the pharmacy. For the most of the last 28 years Dr Hilson has been working as a solo GP with a part time assistant, although as a Cornerstone Accredited Teaching Practice, his team has now expanded with a number of younger doctors,
Members of the Nelson City Medical Centre team include, from left, Nadine Hunter, Dr. Caroline Wright, Dr. Hamish Renwick Hilson, nurse Bobbie Hutton and Dr. Dinah Kohner. including Caroline Wright and Tom Davies who have been working in the practice as GP registrars. Tom is currently a GP Registrar in Motueka but will be returning to Nelson City Medical Centre from December to work four sessions a week. Caroline will also be working four sessions a week, while Dr. Dinah Kohner will be doing two sessions a week. “I will be working in the background consulting, supervising and providing oversight, because as an older doctor it’s part of my duty to provide education and supervision
TUESDAY 11 October 2016
for younger doctors as they come into general practice,” says Hamish. “It’s a two-way learning process though as I also learn from them the electronic and modern ways of doing things.” Dr Hilson says the practice has always been a small one and will continue to be so, even in their larger premises. “I think that all general practices in Nelson provide excellent care and we’ve always been small, being a solo practice. Although we are now a medical centre, we’re probably the smallest in town and we want to remain relatively small. We like that personal feel and we like patients to be able to see the doctor they want, whether male or female, older or younger.” The new practice has also seen a new logo that symbolises a number of things important to Hamish and the centre. “Our logo is made up from a Reuleaux Triangle, a shape formed at the intersection of three circles, a reminder of the importance of a balance of mind, body and spirit. The logo can look like both a heart and shield and I like to think that in the middle is a bright centre of hope,” says Hamish. “It’s got curved sides and at any point diameters are equal, so it represents the equality we aim for in health care. The three triangles nesting inside each other represent special relationships, continuity and care of family/whanau because we’ve often seen three, sometimes four, generations of families coming through the practice.”
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Dr Hilson says Nelson City Medical Centre will continue to provide up-to-date, modern, medical care with old-fashioned values, so for more information about the centre, contact them today.
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