Two Northland women who once struggled to find steady work are on track to become New Zealand’s first qualified footcare assistants, a brand new health role built around one stubborn problem, the number of people who lose a foot or a leg to diabetes.
Christine Hape and Hineataahua Brown are training through the Ngāti Hine Health Trust in Northland and are due to qualify in November. When they do, they will be the first two people in the country to hold the footcare assistant qualification, a job that sits alongside podiatrists and takes on the routine work that keeps small foot problems from turning into serious ones. Their story was reported by RNZ on 20 July.
The idea is simple. People with diabetes can lose feeling in their feet, which means a blister, a cut or an ingrown nail can go unnoticed until it becomes an infection or an ulcer. Left unchecked, that can end in an amputation. A footcare assistant handles the everyday care that catches those problems early, freeing up scarce podiatrists for the more complex cases.
Hape, a former special needs teacher, has taken to the work with obvious enthusiasm. “I’m loving it. I didn’t realise how much I love feet,” she told RNZ. She described the role plainly. “We take care of all the basic footcare that helps lessen the load for our podiatrists, basic nail cutting, filing.” One patient told her she had done “magic” on their feet.
The two trainees learn the theory online and then put it into practice under supervision, running outreach clinics and house visits across rural Northland. Much of that work reaches people who would otherwise find it hard to get to a podiatry appointment, whether because of distance, cost or a lack of transport.
The need in the area is stark. Tamati Shepherd-Wipiiti, chief executive of the Ngāti Hine Health Trust, says the diabetes rate among the trust’s patients is far above the national picture. “Our patient database tells us that over 60 percent have either type 1, type 2 or are pre-diabetic,” he told RNZ, describing that as roughly three times the national average. His own experience is part of why he pushed for the role. He has had a partial foot amputation because of type 2 diabetes. “Diabetes is killing our whānau,” he said, using the word for extended families.
That concern is backed by national figures. A study of major limb amputations in New Zealand between 2010 and 2021, published in a peer reviewed journal, counted 5,293 procedures, an average of about 8.5 a week, with diabetes a leading driver. Researchers at the University of Otago have estimated that better access to podiatry could prevent about 600 diabetes related amputations a year. The same work pointed to how thin the public podiatry workforce is, with only a small share of registered podiatrists employed in the public system.
That gap is where the footcare assistant role is meant to help. Podiatrists spend years training and are in short supply, especially outside the main centres. A footcare assistant can be trained faster and drawn from the local community, which means care is delivered by people who already know the area and the people in it. The trust plans to add two more assistants once Hape and Brown have qualified, building a small local workforce dedicated to keeping people on their feet.
Prevention is the whole point. Foot ulcers and amputations are among the most costly and life changing complications of diabetes, and many are avoidable with regular checks, good nail and skin care, and early referral when something looks wrong. Catching a problem at the filing and trimming stage is far cheaper, and far kinder, than treating an infected ulcer in hospital months later. For patients, keeping a foot can be the difference between living independently and losing mobility for good.
There is a jobs story here too. Both women came to the training after periods out of steady work, and the qualification gives them a recognised health credential and a career close to home. It is a model that could travel well, matching a growing health need with local employment in a region that has plenty of both. If the Northland pilot works, the same approach could be picked up by clinics in other high need areas around the country.
For now the focus is on November, when Hape and Brown are set to become the first names on a new list. The role did not exist in New Zealand a year ago. By the end of this year, two Northland women will have shown what it can do, one set of feet at a time.
What do you make of new roles like this filling gaps in the health system? Have you or someone you know dealt with diabetes and foot care in a part of the country where specialists are hard to reach? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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