With the wealth of information that’s easily available to us now, we spend more time thinking about our health and wellbeing than ever before. Yet, how many of us spend much time considering our feet? (Except for maybe painting our toenails every now and again.)
This month we spoke to the founder of Waitakere Foot, Kiseon Hong, to talk about the Waitakere Foot podiatry clinics, and how looking after our feet can be the key to staying mobile and healthy.
Our beginnings
Ten years ago, I was a podiatrist based in a small room at a physio clinic in Te Atatu Peninsula. I recognised that West Aucklanders needed a proper, larger podiatry clinic that was easy for them to access, affordable and professional. Before Waitakere Foot, there were no podiatry clinics in West Auckland that were providing full services and full-time access.
So, I founded Waitakere Foot. And from a one-person clinic we’ve grown to three clinics – Te Atatu, Henderson and New Lynn, with a team of six highly-skilled podiatrists.
Remember your feet!
We can easily take our feet for granted and not give them the proper attention they deserve. They are the furthest limb from our body, which makes it hard for some – especially the elderly – to look after them. But when things go wrong, we can lose mobility and our whole health may deteriorate.
Conditions like diabetes can result in complications to the feet as a result of nerve damage. We treat patients with diabetes to prevent these kind of complications – especially to stop their feet being amputated.
At Waitakere Foot, we want to help people take care of their feet and for everyone to be able to walk or run through life without pain.
A full service
General and sports. Young and old. Prevention and treatment.
We provide a complete service to treat and care for the whole family’s feet from babies, to active adults and the elderly. This means we can help prevent and treat general and sports-related injuries, care for feet and nails, and alleviate pain.
We look after the whole of the foot from addressing muscular-skeletal concerns to skin care, nail treatments and orthotics (corrective devices to put in your shoes). We have a range of treatments and equipment available in our clinics. For example, in New Lynn, we can offer Light Therapy Treatment and in Te Atatu, patients can get Shockwave Therapy.
Our clinicians are trained in a range of specialties, from general podiatry to sports podiatry and orthotics, to ingrown and fungal nail treatments and surgery. You can see the full range of our services on our website.
Keeping up-to-date
It’s important that our clients receive the most up-to-date procedures and treatments. Our experienced clinicians each have their own specialty, and we regularly go to conferences to keep informed of any changes to technology and within podiatry – to make sure that what we do is always current and evidence-based.
Teaching the next generation of podiatrists
We value education and promoting podiatry. As well as helping our patients look after their feet, we take on students for placements, teach classes at AUT, and sit in at med school with our future doctors.
Easy access
Looking after our feet well, choosing the right shoes, properly managing and treating problem nails, alleviating pain from sports injuries, and preventing serious complications to our feet are all so important to our mobility and overall health. That’s why easy access to highly skilled and experienced podiatrists is crucial.
Our podiatrists are available at our three Waitakere Foot clinics five-days a week with late night and Saturday appointments available on request.
For more information about Waitakere Foot, visit www.waitakerefoot.co.nz
Two Sparrows provide graphic design services and recently developed a new website for Waitakere Foot.