Following a meeting in November with the Canterbury Mayoral Forum (a forum made up of city, regional and district councils) in the South Island, an invitation was issued to Hauora Taiwhenua to present at the Local Government New Zealand rural provincial mayoral forum, which is based in Wellington.

Hauora Taiwhenua is a collective organisation formed to advocate for the health and wellbeing of rural New Zealanders. The group consists of nine chapters, which include: Rural General Practice, Rural Nurses New Zealand, Rural Midwives and Maternity, Rural Hospitals, Rural Health Research and Education, Rural Communities, Rural Scientific Technical and Allied Health, Whānau Whānui and Students of Rural Health Aotearoa. This broad membership allows the majority of rural health issues to be spoken to from an informed base. This group frequently meets with the government to advocate for rural communities. Hauora Taiwhenua is committed to collaborating and partnering with other organisations that share the same values and commitment to improving rural health outcomes. One area that needs to be enhanced in the rural areas is Primary Health care. How could a partnership with a mayoral forum assist with this?

These Mayoralty forums focus on a framework of sustainable development, which includes:

• Natural capital: Includes all aspects of the natural environment needed to support life and human activity – ecosystems, minerals, and energy resources.
• Human capital: Skills, knowledge and physical and mental health that enable people to participate fully in living.
• Economic wellbeing: Infrastructure and assets that support incomes and material living conditions.
• Social Capital: Social connections, attitudes, norms that enable social co-operation, including trust, the rule of law, the Crown-Māori relationship and cultural identity.

Hauora Taiwhenua is currently holding discussions with the above group, exploring ideas on how they could work together to benefit rural communities.

Initially, there could be three areas where these two rurally focused and strong groups could partner,

1. Rural Health Career Promotion: The Rural Health Careers program promotes and supports careers in rural health through rural school visits. Some of these careers would include medicine, nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, and optometry. All these professions are suffering from a very few in the rural areas. Presentations by current students or recent graduates talking about their experiences and mentoring interested students through the application process. This could expose rural school leavers to opportunities in health and the resources to make this happen, e.g. scholarships available.
2. Recruitment: Partnership to actively recruit doctors and nurse practitioners into rural and urban General Practices and Rural Hospitals would work well. Initially, the health professional may be placed in a rural area for their clinical experience. Here, the councils could welcome the arrival of a new health professional into the rural area, assist in finding accommodation and introduce them to the rural community. If the student feels integrated, they may be keener to return to the rural area when looking for work. Funding is always a challenge in these types of projects. Working in a partnership model, discussion regarding financial assistance and other support with accommodation and travel would be invaluable.
3. Adverse Weather Effects: Adverse weather effects refer to a significant negative impact on the environment caused by a natural disaster. This may be a drought, a storm that includes flooding, cyclones, earthquakes, snowstorms, volcanic eruptions, and biosecurity incursions. These disasters may cause disruptions to transport or infrastructure systems, such as road closures. Collaborating with their partner, instead of in silos, long term plans could be developed to manage the damaging effects of these disasters much earlier, resulting in better outcomes for the local communities. This could include setting up a telehealth hub in a local pharmacy, hall, or some other accessible facility to manage the health concerns of the community during a disaster.

The partnership outlined could be a great benefit to rural communities. Utilising the skills of two strong organisations to enhance primary health care in the rural communities can only benefit the health and living situations of those living rurally.