An anti-violence programme in a Hastings general practice led to nine men walking in off the street during 2012 asking for help.
The Family Violence Intervention Programme has helped hundreds of victims of domestic abuse and is about to be rolled out across Hawkes Bay.
All clinical staff at Hastings Health Centre are taught to screen every woman and child who walks in the door.
In the last four years, almost 13,000 such screenings have been carried out and 369 people have subsequently been identified as needing help and referral, some immediately.
The centre's family violence intervention co-ordinator, Debs Higgins, says the screening is unobtrusive but can change lives.
She believes the programme and other publicity about family violence led to the nine men - some of them not patients of the centre - coming in to ask for help.
