About Us

Our Story

From small beginnings

The practice now known as Papakura East Medical Centre was started in 1985 by Dr Erica Lauder and Dr Jane McKay. They practised from a single consulting room behind the then laboratory, now an Indian takeaway.

Dr Keith Holmes bought out Jane in 1986 and moved the practice to a converted house at our current location. Dr Dean Mackay bought out Erica in 1991 and in 1994, Keith and Dean purchased the house next to the Grove Road shops and converted it.

A modern, comprehensive practice

We provide a comprehensive general practice/primary care/family medicine service. Obstetrics was initially a big part of our practice, first with Erica and then Dean. With the advent of reform in maternity care funding this service was ceased and since then Dean and Keith have continued with shared care arrangements.

In 2018, we proudly opened our brand new purpose-built medical centre, which is the building you know today. The new clinic has seven consulting rooms, four nurse bays, a minor operations room, large administration area and waiting rooms and sluice room.

As our patient population has grown over the years, we welcomed Dr Primla Khar to the team in late 2015 and Dr Sarah Holmes in late 2020, giving patients the options of female GPs. In 2019, we welcomed our first Physician Associate, Christy Sutherland from America. We had tried finding an additional GP for the clinic for some time, but as New Zealand is facing a shortage of doctors, we had to look at alternatives. Since then, we have employed three more PAs. Our PAs are highly-trained medical professionals. PAs practice medicine in collaboration with and under the license of their supervising physician(s).

Our current team consists of four General Practitioners, three Physician's Associate, five Registered Nurses and five Admin/Reception staff.

Both Keith and Dean are very interested in minor surgery and procedures and Dean is a part of the GP liaison minor surgery initiative with Counties Manukau DHB. Dean also has special interests in psychological medicine and paediatrics, and Keith in sports medicine and geriatrics.

As our staffing has grown, we have been able to introduce more services to the practice. Some of these include spirometry, diabetes clinics, health coach, health improvement practitioners, covid/cold/flu clinics, long acting reversible contraception, advanced care planning and much more.

Supporting a diverse population

Our practice population is made up largely of members of the Papakura East Community, which is lower socio-economic and predominantly quintile 4 or 5 in the deprivation score. We have patients from as far north as Whangarei and as far south as Queenstown.

We have a very diverse group of patients, from young families to an aged population of retirees. We belong to Procare PHO and follow a fee restraint policy reflecting the limited financial means of most of our clients. Procare also provides us with additional funding streams, so that we can reduce the barriers that prevent patients accessing or affording healthcare services.