Nelson Weekly
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Wednesday 27 September 2023
Page 29
Remembering Ralphie
Myron back from injury
Page 4
More patients for struggling GPs ANNE HARDIE A struggling workforce of GPs in the Nelson Tasman region is dealing with 600 more patients a week than they were a few years ago and nearly all the medical
centres are limiting new enrolments. Nelson GP (general practice) spokesperson Graham Loveridge says GPs in the Nelson Tasman region are grappling with the workload due to the inability to
recruit more GPs, more complex patients and the overloaded hospital system pushing more patients on to GPs. “We have an older population now and many will have more than one problem and the hos-
pital system is struggling to cope. That means we’re getting more complicated patients being pushed back into general practice.” At the same time, the population in Nelson and Tasman is growing
and 10 per cent of the GP workforce is over the age of 65. “That’s a major issue and we just haven’t been training enough young GPs to come in at the
SEE PAGE 2
Wheelchair basketball rolls into region JACK MALCOLM
Ben Buschl, Joel Kindley and Marty Price, alongside the chair of late Nelson Rebels player Dan Mackey, were all smiles as they got in some practice ahead of wheelchair basketball’s return to the region. Photo: Jack Malcolm.
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After a three-year hiatus, the cobwebs have been dusted off the specialised basketball wheelchairs ahead of the sport’s return to the region. The Wheelchair Sports Day on 8 October will see the chairs back in use after spending years in storage. Alongside slalom racing, a baton relay and wheelchair badminton, the day would not have been possible without the resourcefulness of the local community. Neisha Kindley says her son Joel has always been interested in wheelchairs, and it was a case of meeting the right person who set the wheels in motion for the sport’s return. “When he was younger, he told me he wished his ‘terrible palsy’, as he calls it, was worse so he could have a chair.” While attending the Halberg Games, a three-day
SEE PAGE 2
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