21st WONCA World Rural Health Conference, 10-13 April 2026: Read More – WONCA 2026 | Home
When severe weather struck parts of Aotearoa earlier this year, rural communities once again found themselves responding first — often before external support could reach them. Across isolated regions, damaged roads, power outages and communication failures quickly transformed local health practices into critical lifelines for their communities.
From Great Barrier Island to the Coromandel Peninsula and the East Coast, rural health teams adapted rapidly to ensure care continued despite significant disruption. Their experiences highlight not only the immediate challenges posed by extreme weather events, but the growing importance of resilience within rural primary care.
On Great Barrier Island, flooding damaged infrastructure and cut power across the island, affecting both households and essential services.
Tania Kemp, Director of Aotea Health, said the loss of council-supplied electricity resulted in vaccine storage failure and disrupted clinical systems almost immediately.
“We relied on generators to maintain IT systems and cold chain storage while roads, communications and clean water access were affected across the island.”
Flooding and slips divided the island into four isolated regions, making travel nearly impossible. Staff access quickly became one of the biggest challenges, yet team members stepped beyond normal roles to keep services operating.
“People focused on what needed to be done and supported each other across roles and regions,” Kemp said.
Clinic teams adjusted appointment schedules, expanded telehealth use where possible, and dispensed medications early to ensure patients remained supported during uncertainty. Staff also delivered water and food supplies to vulnerable community members while maintaining clinical services.
Early recognition that communication would be critical proved vital. Radios secured through Hato Hone St John enabled coordination across isolated areas, while supplies and staff positioned within each region ensured local access to care continued.
Further south, storm damage across the Coromandel restricted road access and temporarily limited ambulance availability.
For Dr Bryan MacLeod, GP at Coromandel Family Health Centre, the event reinforced how geography shapes emergency preparedness.
“A couple of roads went out, which meant ambulances weren’t as available for a period. It highlighted how dependent we are on reliable transport during these events.”
The practice is now reviewing whether a more robust four-wheel-drive response vehicle — capable of transporting patients safely to helicopters or incoming ambulances — is required as severe weather events become more frequent.
Beyond infrastructure challenges, longer-term impacts are continuing to emerge.
“There’s ongoing social, financial and psychological stress in the community,” MacLeod said. “That’s becoming part of the new normal, and it directly affects consultations and demand for care.”
On the East Coast, entire communities were cut off after slips closed road access in both directions. With patients unable to reach existing clinics, healthcare workers were flown in by helicopter to these areas to establish temporary disaster relief services.
GP Dr Ella Williamson (pictured, left) travelled from Gisborne to Hicks Bay on four separate deployments, working alongside nurses and local responders to deliver care from improvised clinic spaces.
“We were essentially running a resource-limited clinic using what we could carry in,” Williamson said. “Initially everything was paper-based, and if we didn’t have something, it was a helicopter flight away.”
Clinics operated from community facilities, including local schools and marae, providing treatment for flood-related injuries, respiratory issues linked to silt exposure, infections, and physical strain caused by clean-up efforts.
Unexpectedly, the response also created opportunities for preventive care.
“Because people were cut off, many who hadn’t engaged with healthcare for years came in while we were there,” she said. “Just knowing healthcare was available reduced a huge amount of stress.”
Williamson said the experience demonstrated both vulnerability and strength within remote communities.
“You can do a lot with not a lot of resource. The community was incredibly resilient and self-sufficient.”
What unfolded across these regions was not simply disaster response — it was a demonstration of how rural primary care functions as essential infrastructure when wider systems fail.
When communications dropped and transport routes closed, local practices became coordination hubs, welfare checkpoints and trusted sources of reassurance. Increasingly, events like this are testing whether rural health services are resourced not only for everyday care, but for the climate-driven disruptions expected to shape the future of Aotearoa’s health system.
Experiences shared by practices reinforce longstanding calls for rural health services to be recognised within national emergency and resilience planning.
Lessons from the storm are already informing future preparedness across affected regions.
At Aotea Health, planning now includes distributing radios to clinical staff, strengthening regional supply access, and developing emergency “grab bags” for vulnerable patients. Collaboration with iwi, emergency management agencies and local social services is also expanding to improve coordinated responses across the wider hapori.
Across all regions, one insight was consistent: resilience depends as much on relationships and local knowledge as it does on infrastructure.
Rural communities will continue to respond when disaster strikes — they always have. The question now is whether the systems surrounding them evolve at the same pace, ensuring the clinicians and communities standing on the frontline are supported not only to endure future events, but to thrive.
