A Carterton health team have achieved the impossible or at least the very difficult by getting the men of the town to go to the doctor.
Carterton Medical Centre have joined forces with the Carterton Community Trust to offer free health checks for men in the district,
and the idea is starting to catch on.
Staff at the centre have been gradually phoning the men on their database and offering a half-hour medical, including blood pressure, cholesterol and hearing among other things.
The target age groups are Maori men over 35, and European men over 45, based on the New Zealand guidelines for cardiovascular health.
Practice manager Sandy Moore said the checks are "a great baseline" for Carterton men to become more aware of health issues.
We assess each individual bloke and we say: 'This is where we're at, and there's some indicators here where there are some areas we could do better'.
"We say: 'This is where your health is now, and this where it might be in three, five, 10 years, and what steps might we be able to take to keep it the best you can have.
Mrs Moore said the feedback has been good from the men who have taken up the offer.
"They've felt it's worthwhile and started to tell their friends.
"It's probably too early to tell how healthy the men of the district are, generally.
Practice nurse Maree Tonks said the checks are a good way of catching men before a small problem gets worse.
"Otherwise your first presentation is up at the emergency room and will be a heart attack."
Ms Tonks said staff are "very happy when we see people who are actually healthy and it's not just 'I haven't got anything so drastically wrong with me that I need a doctor'."
"Because often you're finding people with the early stages of disease, and then you can step in and really prevent that where the first time they present is at the emergency room.
"It happens too often, and somebody told me that you guys are too valuable to let that happen to."
