Kaipara Lifestyler June 15th, 2021

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Jun 15 2021

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Award salutes huge community service u by Paul Campbell

Dr Derek Clifton Gibbons, from Dargaville, has been awarded the QSM for services to health.

Three Waters details awaited

Kaipara ratepayers are now waiting to discover the full detail of the government’s Three Waters plan …

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Roading governance — local v national

A report this week from the Northland Transport Alliance to civic councils in the north shows more roading …

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Nurses strike nationwide

Dargaville’s nurses joined their fellow health workers in a nationwide strike last Wednesday …

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That simple announcement in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list belies the huge impact he has had on today’s medical services in Dargaville and the wider Kaipara district. For more than four decades, he has worked for the security and longevity of essential health services and was instrumental in retaining Dargaville Hospital and arranging for the Dargaville Medical Centre to take over patient medical care from the District Health Board creating a 24/7 service. “I wanted to see what general practice was like, and someone told me while I was working in Auckland that Dargaville was always looking for a locum,” Dr Gibbons told the Lifestyler. “I was not even sure where Dargaville was. However, when I got here 45 years ago, I realised rural general practice was a speciality in itself and where I could develop further medical skills for rural practice, which would be difficult in a city such as community emergency medicine, basic surgery and obstetrics. “I also realised that a close working relationship and support for the local rural hospital was important in providing care for the community, and I could see an opportunity to form a special relationship between primary and secondary medical care here. I am delighted to see that there has been recognition for this. My GP colleagues also deserve recognition in lending ongoing support to our local hospital.” Dr Gibbons said the improvement also required certain insight from local DHB

p Dr Derek Gibbons, QSM recipient for medical progress in Dargaville and the wider Kaipara

management during the initial process of amalgamation in the 1990s. “A group of us from Dargaville including then-mayor Peter Brown flew to Wellington in 1996 and managed to talk the government into approving a suspensory loan for $1.8 million so that we could alter part of the hospital buildings to make a total health care centre possible. “Our main achievement was centralising and coordinating medical services at the hospital and thus assuring that Dargaville Hospital would remain open and functioning to provide essential health services for our community for the future. We now have a local health service which is well coordinated, and I believe is

very efficient. I have been proud to have been one of the leading people that have made it happen. “Two other factors also made staying in Dargaville an attractive proposition — the two Maurices. Maurice Matich, one of the founding members of Dargaville Medical Centre, was widely respected as a leading role model for a rural GP, for me as well as for many other doctors. The other Maurice was boatbuilder Maurice Hansen who, with his vast knowledge and expertise, helped me with my ambition to build a yacht and sail offshore.” Now retired, Dr Gibbons plans to spend time on the Kaipara Harbour aboard a newly acquired motor launch. ¢

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