Staff at Totara Health to find a marquee used for Covid-19 vaccinations had been stolen, one of 22 burglaries and 12 thefts in Hawke's Bay over the weekend. Photo / Warren Buckland
Staff at Totara Health to find a marquee used for Covid-19 vaccinations had been stolen, one of 22 burglaries and 12 thefts in Hawke's Bay over the weekend. Photo / Warren Buckland
Branded vehicles, a portable cabin and even a standing marquee being used for Flaxmere's Covid-19 vaccination efforts are among the items stolen during a weekend of brazen thefts across Hawke's Bay.
A police spokesman said they were called to 22 reports of burglaries across the region from Friday to Sunday,as well as reports of six car thefts and 12 general thefts over the weekend.
Totara Health general manager Shane Gorst said it was hugely disappointing to find one of the marquees at its Flaxmere clinic had been stolen after Super Saturday.
Gorst estimated that they might have had 500 people through the clinic on Super Saturday alone.
The five-by-five metre marquee had been used as part of the Covid-19 vaccination efforts in Flaxmere and had been there for four months without incident.
Aaron Bateman Totara Health social services manager, Gabrielle Banks Totara Health operations manager stand in the empty space where a marquee was stolen. Photo / Warren Buckland
Gorst believes the marquee, which was held down with concrete blocks and had electric wiring running through it, was stolen overnight sometime after Super Saturday from inside a fenced-off area.
"That set-up has been put there for the sole purpose of providing a service to Flaxmere.
"We are the only permanent vaccine centre in Flaxmere."
The marquee being stolen meant they'd now have to move vaccinations inside the main building, said Gorst, adding that without it "running, large-scale clinics are difficult".
"It makes our job harder than it needs to be."
It was also "gutting" for Mardis Gras, the company that provided the marquee and whose branding is visible on it, he said.
The five-by-five metre marquee, which was stolen over the weekend had been being used as part of Totara Health's Covid-19 vaccination efforts in Flaxmere. Photo / Supplied
Gorst said he just wanted the marquee back but the matter had been reported to the police.
Police confirmed they responded to a report of a tent stolen from a yard on the corner of Caernarvon Dr and Chatham Rd, Flaxmere, on Monday morning, with the theft estimated to have taken place between Saturday at 6pm and Monday at 8am.
Napier residents also took to social media over the Taradale RSA's courtesy van being stolen from an address on Vautier St, as well as a portable cabin on wheels at commercial premises on Taradale Rd.
Police believe the van was taken sometime between 6.30pm on Friday and 12.30pm on Saturday, and the portable cabin sometime between 6pm on Friday and 9am on Saturday.
