Denis Gapper, a 74-year-old ex-railway worker and haemodialysis patient at Wairau Hospital's Tātari Toto, says his life has changed for the better since the unit opened one year ago.
Denis, alongside other Marlborough kidney patients, previously faced a gruelling travel day to Nelson and back three times a week to receive life-saving dialysis, prior to the local unit opening adjacent to Marlborough's Urgent Care Centre last November.
"I don't care what anyone says, I made a statement over in Nelson too saying that the treatment wouldn't kill me, but the travel would.
"My life has improved 100%," he says.
Marlborough Primary Health won the Conporto Health Innovation in Service Delivery award at the 2026 New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards He Tohu Mauri Ora for Tātari Toto in Auckland last month.
Patients were "the driving force" behind the development, says Dr Jordan Gibbs, Medical Director of the Marlborough Urgent Care Centre, who saw the impact the lack of a local facility was having on them.
Their lobbying encouraged Health New Zealand, Marlborough Primary Health and local partners to come together to develop the four-chair unit that now provides dialysis to twelve patients each week.
Jordan says there has been steady growth in the number of users since the facility opened, highlighting both the rising demand for dialysis in the region and the positive effect of improved access.
"Most of these patients haven't just suddenly required dialysis in the last 12 months. Most of them were people that have subsequently decided actually it is doable."
The Australian and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry survey for 2025 revealed that there were only three haemodialysis units across the entire South Island.
Jordans explains that prior to the local unit, she witnessed patients moving regions to be closer to a dialysis service, and "even sadder," choosing palliative care over travelling for treatment due to the mental and physical impacts.
"That exponential run of numbers just says that the need was always there, and now we're providing it," she says.
The unit is open six days a week and currently caters for up to 16 patients, with the need for expansion already becoming apparent.
"With the rate that we're rapidly rising, we're looking at expanding much quicker than we originally thought," Jordan adds.
"We're in conversations already with Health New Zealand about what that might look like because we would need more space and chairs and equipment."
Kidney expert and nephrologist Dr Curtis Walker told RNZ in May that New Zealand needed up to 150 more dialysis machines to bring service up to par with Australia.
Jordan says the focus remains on preparing for the demand and the growing prevalence of chronic kidney disease.
"We know that access to haemodialysis across the country is really stretched, and so we need to be actively planning ahead."
Reflecting on the past year, she says the biggest reward is seeing the unit become "a home, a community and a lifeline" for patients, who aren't "just numbers" but people who deserved to be heard.
For Denis, the service now being a three-minute drive from his house instead of nearly two hours away, has freed up family time and enabled a better quality of life.
"I get to see my daughter and spend time with her pup in the afternoons."
Adding that he turned 74 three weeks ago, he reflects on the milestone, "I'm pretty proud of that day.
"Yep. Because I'm still here."
