Living Waters collaborative project results in new Whanganui East medical clinic

Celebrating the opening of Living Waters' new general practice medical clinic in Whanganui East on June 7, 2025, are (from left) Dr Praveen Thadigiri, Reverend Caleb Rowe and Whanganui MP Carl Bates.

A new GP clinic has opened in Whanganui East thanks to a collaboration by Living Waters and the Whanganui Anglican Church.

Living Waters is a Whanganui-based, family-owned medical service established in October 2014 as Castlecliff Health (later known as Castlecliff Health 2016).

The organisation celebrated the opening and blessing of the new clinic building on Moana St in Whanganui East on June 7 and welcomed its first patients on June 9.

Specialist general practitioner and clinical lead Dr Praveen Thadigiri was thrilled to open the new premises.

“Living Waters is deeply grateful for the support we’ve received, in particular from the Whanganui Anglicans, and is thrilled to open our doors to serve the community from the new premises,” he said.

In 2023, Living Waters bought a GP clinic two doors down from the new premises but, because the foundation standards were deemed unfit for purpose for modern-day practice, it relocated to Wicksteed St.

“We looked around – I attend the Anglican Church and was aware they had project plans in place for development of some properties,” Thadigiri said.

“We asked, ‘is there a chance that we could work together – you guys refurbish and then we would be the tenants for however long after that’.”

Thadigiri said the “real work” started in October and November to get the project moving.

“It takes a while for a faith-based organisation and a commercial entity to work together so it took a lot of trust and courage on the part of the church to make the decision to work with us,” Thadigiri said.

Thadigiri said it was logical to set up a clinic in Whanganui East.

“This side of the Whanganui River did not have any health facility full-stop,” he said.

“We have the responsibility of continuing to operate a clinic in this part of town and hence we went through with this project.”

Because Living Waters operates several clinics in Whanganui, staffing was easy to navigate.

They are able to move staff around the clinics and have hired two new administrators and a new nurse.

“It’s quite good for them as well in a time where there is a lot of demanding behaviours – it’s good for people to move locations so it is new and fresh,” Thadigiri said.

Thadigiri said the goals were to build on the organisation’s services and the patient register as well as potentially develop more services.

“Growth is basically what we are looking at going forward.”