Some of the tens of thousands of names added to a petition to fix the health system have disappeared. Photo: RNZ / Giles Dexter
Part of a massive petition calling for an urgent fix for the health system never made it to Wellington, where the petition was presented last week.
A plea has gone out to help find the missing sheet after the petition - containing 90,000 signatures - was delivered to Parliament by the group Patient Voice Aotearoa.
The petition was launched in Buller in September 2024, before it was sent out around the country for more signatures to be added.
The vast majority of the signatures made it to Wellington last week, but not those collected in South Westland.
Christine Blair, who is part of the Buller Health Action Group, said an event was held in Hokitika to gather signatures late last year.
Westland Mayor Helen Lash then offered to take one of the petition sheets to collect more signatures around South Westland - and that was the last time the sheet was seen.
Lash said her recollection of what happened was not great, as it was so long ago.
"It was signed by quite a few people then someone said 'well, I'll get it down to here', and that was it," Lash said.
She would like to hear from anyone who saw the petition being passed around, so they could start to figure out where it was last seen.
She said it had several hundred signatures the last time she saw it.
Christine Blair said the Buller Health Action Group and Patient Voice Aotearoa really wanted the sheet found so that South Westland was included in the historic petition.
"Mayor Lash was very enthusiastic and said 'I'll get this around the area and we'll get this sheet filled'," Blair said.
"We know it hasn't come back to us, and we just think its not right for the people of Westland to have signed into this idea of the Buller Declaration and then their voices not being attached to the master document."
Blair said anyone who thought they had the sheet should get in touch through the Patient Voice Aotearoa Facebook page and she would be happy to arrange to get it transported to Wellington.
But time was running out.
The petition is now sitting with an MP in Wellington, but they can only add signatures for another week until Tuesday 2 December, and then it will be lodged in the House and no more signatures can be added.
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