Healthy Wellie

Wellington the healthiest city in New Zealand
11 April 2006
By NIKKI MACDONALD

Wellingtonians are generally healthier than the average Kiwi, with lower hospital admission rates for heart disease, heart attacks and strokes, figures show. Maori and Pacific Islanders do better in Wellington than in other regions, but continue to have higher admission rates than other ethnic groups for most key conditions.

Capital and Coast District Health Board's six-month progress report, to December 31, 2005, shows Wellingtonians have generally lower hospital admission rates than elsewhere in New Zealand, though the differences are not always statistically significant. Wellington children are less likely to land in hospital with preventable injuries, less likely to have a teenage pregnancy, and less likely to be admitted with asthma.

Health board planning and funding director Win Bennett said Wellington's lower admission rates were the result to some extent of the region's demographics, and disguised the fact there was still a significant population who did not do well. However, there had been significant improvements in the past three years.

Despite ballooning diabetes rates, better podiatry services and management of the disease meant the board had achieved the "spectacular" result of reducing the number of diabetes-related lower-limb amputations from about 100 five years ago to 20.

The rate of low-birth-weight babies ? most commonly the result of poor maternal nutrition ? more than halved from September 2002 to September 2005, as a result of a push to improve sexual health services for young people, Mr Bennett said. Teenage pregnancies also fell significantly ? by more than a third for young Maori women ? also suggesting improved sexual health services.

Despite gains in some areas, Maori and Pacific Islanders continue to have higher rates of hospital admissions with heart disease, heart attacks and strokes. Maori and Pacific children have higher rates of hearing and vision problems and of preventable hospital admissions. Improving child health continued to be one of the biggest challenges facing the board. "Particularly Pacific children. We need to do a lot better. Their outcomes have been pretty static despite more investment," Mr Bennett said.

Porirua doctor Larry Jordan said the health of the region was improving slowly but steadily. "There remain some pockets of hard-to-improve high-needs, high-illness groups of people. We are seeing some improvement, but there are still significant disparities along ethnic and income lines."

Probably because people go back to their homes in other cities to die ....