The Health Specialist Centre sponsored Dr Alainuanua Tupai for a week in June 2018 to scope the general practice service at the HSC.
Dr Tupai is a well known Samoan family doctor from Auckland and is a principal at Baderdrive Health Service.
Dr Tupai observed the need for such a service in Samoa. “There were people that just refused to go the hospital for one reason or another so a service like this is very much needed.”
In her talk to the clinical providers at the HSC, she emphasised the need for a patient-centred service. “A patient central to the service means we have to make sure other services are wrapped around the care to make sure the patient is not going back to the same cause of their ill-health”.