New manager forges health links

New Health Link North manager Wiki Shepherd-Sinclair says she is focused on making a difference in each community that the organisation covers, from Te Hana to Northcote.Health Link North acts as a link between the Waitemata District Health Board and the community, supporting public access to, and awareness of, available health services.

Wiki says she had to hit the ground running when she took up the role a month ago, right in the middle of preparations for a Youth Health Expo in Wellsford on May 1.

“I’ve attended an awful lot of meetings, and it’s helping me get to know the community,” she says.

Concerns raised at such meetings are taken back to the Health Board – Wiki has monthly one on one meetings with Waitemata DHB chief executive Dr Dale Bramley and says he is very open to finding workable solution whenever possible.

She says her job also involves interpreting and communicating high-level health service information so that it has meaning for people using those services as well as helping disseminate information to the community.

Health Link North also analyses data – for example on non-attendance at dental bus services – to ascertain what barriers to using the services might be.

Wiki says her background in teaching, which included health education and seven years with the Life Education Trust, evolved into a passion for health issues.

Completion of a Certificate in Health Promotion in 2008 she describes as a catalyst in understanding community development.

She is also drawing on her strong connections with Ngati Whatua o Te Ha, and says ensuring health organisations hear the voices of marginalised groups – including the elderly, youth, Maori, Pacific and Asian people – is a top priority.

“Barriers to accessing health care can be about language, information or even attitudes,” she says. “Empowering people means not only providing information about choices, but how to access them.”

Wiki’s personal experience of using health services also comes into play, giving her empathy with the struggles that people in poor health, and their families, sometimes have to face.

In particular, she recalls 10 years ago attending daily hospital appointments with her mother, who had diabetes. Her mother went in for amputation of a toe and ended up four months later having half a leg removed. Wiki says it was clear that this was because of pressure of work on hospital staff, leading to an error in care.

“Families may have to be proactive and quite forceful at times and that doesn’t sit well with some cultures,” she says.

Health Link North closed its Orewa office last month and moved its base to Albany, however Wiki says she will spend a lot of time at meetings getting to know the local community.

“For me, those connections with people are vital – I don’t want to be just a phone number or a website, but rather a face that people know.”