The people heading the Waitemata District Health Board and Waitemata Police District have changed. Kylie Munro and Tim Lamb grill the new guys in the top jobs.
Dave Davies Chief Executive Officer Waitemata District Health Board
What inspired you to pursue a job in the health field and how did you get to where you are now? I was brought up in the UK and there was a real interest there. I had quite a social conscience and wanted to help people. I trained as a psychiatric nurse. That inspired me, the fact that you could do good on a day-by-day basis with individual clients, particularly with people with mental health disorders. I really enjoy the health field. I became more interested in management and in training, so I ended up running a health training organisation in Auckland. I became a health funder. I've ended up having a very well-rounded development of my career from clinical to funding to management.
What are the key issues facing the area? Firstly, Waitemata has diverse population groups. Its geography is quite unusual: we have two main urban areas, Waitakere/Henderson and the North Shore, and we have Rodney as well. Within those geographical areas we have very different people. If you look at us in terms of our health statistics, the Waitemata population does really well. But within that we have real pockets of deprivation. So, when you look, for instance, at West Auckland you have a younger population, higher social deprivation and lower health status. Then we match that up against the North Shore that does have a better health status, but an older population. Rodney has a dispersed population. So the issues for us are trying to meet all those different needs.
How do you plan to tackle the issues? The first thing I've got to say is we're not reinventing the wheel. But there's a number of things we're doing very early on. We're trying to engage with communities more, so we're shoving a couple of processes in place to get direct feedback from different communities about what their health needs are, so that can link in with our planning processes. Rather than just saying we're going to provide the same thing to all people, because we have such distinctly different groups, we are developing services that meet the different needs of those groups. Where we have Maori populations we'll take a particular approach and where there are large Pacific Island or Asian populations we'll be developing approaches to make sure that we meet their health needs.
With your background, do you believe attitudes are changing towards mental health? Yes. I saw some of the research around the Like Minds, Like Mine television campaign which showed how people were affected after seeing the ads. Most of the research showed that people saw mental illness and people with mental illness differently. There's a second one about depression. The idea behind that is to get people to view depression differently. The worry is: depression is going to be one of the five major burdens of disease for the future unless we tackle it. Thirty years ago I was working in a large psychiatric hospital just outside Oxford and there was still a view then that the best place to treat people with a mental illness was in a large hospital. So, over 30 years there's been a massive change in people being treated as outpatients and very few hospital admissions. There's less stigmatising. People are happier to talk about it and happier to talk about what's happening in their own families, which I think is really healthy.
Do you think you will focus more services on mental health at Waitemata? No, not particularly. We get a set amount of additional funding every year for mental health services. But we do provide the biggest mental health services in the country. We have two big regional services, the regional forensic services and alcohol and drug services.
Who inspired you as a child? Not as a child but perhaps as an adolescent: Aneurin Bevan, a Labour minister and union leader in Wales. He was seen as being the guy who started the National Health Service in the UK. He was a very forward-thinking bloke.
What do you do to chill out? Bush walking. I like music.
Beatles or the Stones? I like a certain period of the Stones. There's loads of bands that I like. I'm a great fan of reggae, people like Dillinger. I listen to Fat Freddy's Drop - that's reminiscent of Jamaican music.
Tim Tams or Mint Slice? None. I don't eat biscuits that much.
Last CD/book/DVD you bought? The last CD was by Matching Mole, a cult band from Britain in the 70s. There was a long-ago band in Britain called the Soft Machine, sort of a free-form white jazz group - a number of people from that broke up and developed different bands. This was one of them. I've got young kids so I get to hear all the music they bring home as well. I'm more into music. I don't have much time for reading.
Viv Rickard Commander Waitemata Police District
What inspired you to pursue a job with the police and how did you get to where you are now? I am not sure why, but in my teenage years I thought being a policeman would be a good career choice. After I left school I was too young to join, but when I was 20 a group of friends who played rugby together decided to give policing a go. The rest is history. I got to be the district commander for Waitemata for a number of reasons. Firstly, I had been a district commander in Northland and we are on five-year contracts, so it was time to take on a different challenge. Secondly, I've progressed in policing because of the people around me. I don't think I am anything overly special, but I have been lucky enough to have good people to work for, that have worked with me and that have worked for me.
What are the key issues facing the district? We have close to half a million people within my district, so there are different and varied crime problems. Whilst North Shore, Rodney and Waitakere have similar issues, they also have differences. In general, police across Auckland have focused on reducing violence and this means we will work closely with our partners in regard to family violence and will also work on areas such as alcohol and drugs, which are involved in a lot of our violent crime. We still have a big focus on dwelling burglary and vehicle crime - dishonesty makes up close to 50 per cent of all of our crime. First and foremost in our district we are about reducing the number of victims from crime. We believe we can stop crime. A small number of people commit crime. We know that they are generally in the same locations and, unfortunately, it is generally the same victims.
What is the strangest excuse you've been offered by an offender? I haven't had any recently - the closest I get to danger now is a paper cut. When I was a detective inspector I had one offender for a murder who killed the victim because ``he annoyed him''.
Do you think the public perceives police in your district in a positive light? If not, how can this perception be changed? We have some research going on in regard to how the public perceive police. Most people I talk to are really positive about police, but think the only work we do is traffic work. I think, generally, the public really want us to keep our community safe, and although we get it wrong on occasions, the majority of the public is behind us.
Who inspired you as a child? My brothers and sisters. I was the youngest and I was "inspired'' to run fast as I was a little bit cheeky.
What do you do to chill out? I love spending time with my kids and my wife. I used to fish and play golf, both of them really badly, but I don't get as much time these days.
Beatles or the Stones? If I had to pick, the Stones.
Tim Tams or Mint Slice? Neither. Not a biggie on biscuits, but I am terrible on cakes.
Last CD/book/DVD you bought? Cross by James Paterson and before that The Da Vinci Code. The last movie I went to was Borat. The fight scene in the bedroom reminded me of two of my mates - Douglas and Henry Clark - who used to fight exactly like that!
NEW FACES
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