Health & wellbeing
Arrowtown offers a good but not comprehensive collection of health and wellbeing services.
The health service directory Healthpoint offers a more-or-less complete listing of health and social services available to people living in Arrowtown. Some will be able to come to you in Arrowtown; for others you may have to travel to Queenstown or beyond. Yet others only offer a phone or email service. But whatever the challenge you are facing, you should be able to find care or support somewhere.
Arrowtown Medical Centre
Berkshire Street
Mon–Fri 9am–4.30pm
Queenstown Medical Centre offers GP services from their medical centre in Berkshire Street, Arrowtown (behind the bakery). If you have a medical emergency that needs immediate attention, dial 111 for an ambulance. If someone has a cardiac arrest there are defibrillators available at a number of sites in Arrowtown.
Phone 03 450 1355
Fax 03 442 1217
Website
Back on Track Physiotherapy
Back on Track operates out of the old Oddfellows Hall at 57 Buckingham St on weekdays.
Plunket
20 Cardigan Street
Plunket provides well child and family and whānau health support services through free home and clinic visits for children up to 5 years old.
Each visit gives you the opportunity to discuss parenting, family issues, your child’s health and development (eg nutrition, breastfeeding, sleep, safety, behaviour, growth, hearing and vision).
Arrowtown Plunket also offers playgroups in their Cardigan Street rooms.
03 442 7380
PlunketLine 0800 933 922
Email
Facebook
St John Ambulance
If you have a medical emergency, dial 111 and ask for an ambulance, and St John will turn out from their base in Frankton. In many cases Arrowtown Volunteer Fire Brigade will attend as well because they are trained as Medical First Responders. The fire brigade will most likely get there before the ambulance arrives – but they are always called out in addition to St John, never in place of them.
You do not have to pay for the ambulance if you have an accident-related injury that is covered by ACC. If you are treated for another kind of medical emergency you will have to pay a charge, even if someone else called the ambulance for you. Full details are available on the St John website.
If you join the St John Supporter Scheme you will get free emergency ambulance cover by paying a small annual subscription.
There are a number of Automated External Defibrillators available in Arrowtown in case someone has a sudden cardiac arrest. There are two on Buckingham Street – one outside the post office and one outside the bakery – that are available 24 hours a day. There are also AEDs at the golf club, the bowling club, the Four Square in Adamson Drive, the medical centre and two at Millbrook. The fire brigade has two AEDs, and they will bring one to where it's needed when you dial 111.
If someone's heart stops, using an AED could save their life. So if you come across a person who has collapsed and isn't breathing, dial 111 and start CPR and send someone to get an AED. Check out more places you can find an AED at the AED Locations website.
St John Health Shuttle
If you have a health-related appointment in Invercargill you can take advantage of the St John Health Shuttle to get there. This community service uses volunteer drivers in minibuses sponsored by Four Square. A donation is appreciated to help cover costs.
The shuttle runs Monday to Friday on a route that includes Arrowtown, Queenstown and Frankton. Bookings are essential and must be made by 3pm the day prior. The time the shuttle departs and returns depends on the appointment times of the passengers that day.
To make a booking phone 0800 103 046.
Dunedin appointments
If you have a health-related appointment in Dunedin there is a similar service that departs Cromwell at 7.30am and returns at 6.30pm. Bookings are essential, phone 0800 785 276.
Five days a week, Meals on Wheels delivers a hot midday meal to Arrowtown residents who might otherwise find it hard to maintain a good healthy diet. Arrowtown Village Association is one of the organisations that makes Meals on Wheels deliveries.
Anyone who has an illness or disability that makes it hard for them to cook – and does not have a live-in caregiver – may be eligible. Meals on Wheels also supplies food in the short term if you are convalescing at home alone after a hospital stay. And it will deliver to people who have a caregiver who is away from the home for a period. The cost to clients is subsidised by the Southern District Health Board.
If you would like to help deliver meals email Colin Macnicol. To apply to receive Meals on Wheels, talk to your general practitioner or social worker, or to the hospital, about getting a referral.
Hospice Southland
Hospice Southland provides, free of charge, palliative care to those with a life-limiting illness.
The hospice has a six-bed in-patient unit in Invercargill, but it aims to help people stay at home as much as possible if that's their wish.
Hospice Southland can visit you at home in Arrowtown, with care focused on quality of life, responding to each patient's physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
Phone 0800 211 308
Website
Alcoholics Anonymous is a voluntary, worldwide fellowship of people from all walks of life who meet together to attain and maintain sobriety. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
Sunday 7.30pm
Arrowtown Community Rooms, next to tennis courts in Centennial Ave
0800 229 6757