10 September, 2026

Human and animal patients farewell caring duo

GP Jenni and veterinarian Neil Waddell both based their professional lives on the Devonport peninsula. They tell Rob Drent about their parallel careers down the road from each other.

Retirement beckons… Jenni Waddell gave up her Devonport general practice last year, while husband Neil this year sold Shore Vets

Jenni and Neil Waddell reckon that between them they have conducted  tens of  thousands of consultations in Devonport.

GP Jenni retired last year after 34 years of practice on the Devonport peninsula, and veterinarian Neil has just served his last full day at Shore Vets. 

Jenni had 2000 patients; Shore Vets has 14,000 clients on its database.

Neil can include some of Devonport’s celebrity animals among his former patients, including Benjamin the library cat who was “no trouble” but generated other business for his vet clinic. “I remember seeing a dog who had an injured ear after an encounter with Benjamin.” 

And then there was Bruno, the jack russell famous for his jaunts around Devonport after escaping from his Stanley Point home – and for hitching rides on buses and even boats.

“A Navy frigate got to North Head and had to turn around because Bruno got on board,” recalls Neil.

In his long career Neil was only seriously injured by a patient once, spending three days in Middlemore Hospital after a cat with a brain injury bit him on the finger. 

Neil grew up in Hauraki Corner, attended Hauraki School and spent a lot of his childhood in Devonport, visiting his grandfather who had a house in Vauxhall Rd. “We’d play on Cheltenham Beach, in the North Head tunnels and out on a boat,” he recalls. 

Aged nine, he wrote in a class assignment that he wanted to become a vet and the die was cast.

“I wanted to help… a caring type of profession.” 

Jenni, who grew up in Glendowie, went to Auckland Medical School, and Neil to Massey University in Palmerston North. They met on a tramping trip to Great Barrier Island with mutual friends in November 1984. 

Jenni recalls: “They were the two most important days in my life… I qualified as a doctor and three days later I met Neil.” A further tramping trip to the Nelson Lakes confirmed they were “quite keen on each other”. They married in 1986. 

While Neil was a keeper – they celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary on 20 September – tramping became sporadic. 

“I’d met my man so I didn’t need to keep  tramping”, she laughs.

After working around New Zealand and in Britain, the couple settled on the North Shore and bought a house at Forrest Hill.  Neil worked at the nearby Forrest Hill veterinary practice and at the SPCA. 

But then Devonport drew them in, with Jenni buying into a Devonport medical practice and Neil later buying the Devonport vet clinic in 1996 with other vets.

They thought about buying and living in Devonport, but with children Rebecca, David and Elise settled in Forrest Hill pre-school and primary school, the time passed.

“And Lake Rd wasn’t so bad back then,” says Jenni of the commute to work.

It’s different in 2026: Shore Vets has lost clients in Hauraki because of the difficulties in getting down Lake Rd, says Neil.

Eight years ago he began  cycling between work and Forrest Hill, first “on an old clunker my son had at intermediate” and more recently on an electric bike a friend made from a kitset. 

“I’ve enjoyed [the commute]… There have been a few close calls, but I try to keep as visible as I can ,” he says.

The ride has meant he wore shorts to work all year round, with some clients surprised to encounter him in shorts in mid-winter. When he started in the profession, vets wore “suits and ties”. 

He is well known for his dry and sometimes black sense of humour. He remembers once putting a cat on the scales and commenting “the weight of the beast is 6.66 kg, saying “Goodbye Norma Jean” to one beloved pet, so named and even coming up with names for clients’ animals  – a cocker spaniel  became “Joe Cocker”. 

Jenni spent most of her GP career based in Belmont, with Neil just down the road at Shore Vets in Ewen Alison Ave.

The vet clinic is “less than a mile from where I was born,” he says – at the former Pentlands Hospital in Buchanan St. 

Neil became sole owner of Shore Vets when he bought out partner Elsa Flint in 2014. 

While the Waddells kept strict patient confidentiality protocols, it was not uncommon for someone visiting Jenni for a consultation in the morning  to mention they were taking a pet to see Neil in the afternoon. 

They both feel privileged to have worked in the Devonport peninsula community.

“It’s not the type of place where you have six pit bull-crosses running around the property and it doesn’t particularly matter if one goes missing,” says Neil.

But times have changed, even so. When he started a lot of his clientele were older, “just looking after their pets… there seemed to be more people with farming backgrounds where decisions about life and death are made quickly”.

Over 30 years Devonport has become  increasingly affluent and the level of pet care has risen alongside the money.

Around one third of the practice’s current clients have pet insurance, and bills for very sick animals can reach $20,000, occasionally double that. 

New technology has exploded, giving many extra treatment options. When Neil started “we had x-rays and darkroom developing tanks to process the films”. Clients were still on cards prior to computerisation. 

“Now it is all digital processing and we have ultrasound, CT and MRI available.”

Vet specialists and referrals were just starting in the mid-1990s.  “Prior to that we had to do everything ourselves.

“ Now there is international telemedicine, prescription foods, new drugs, immunocytochemistry, genetic screening, in-house laboratory analysers and so on.”

While many vet practices have been bought up and corporatised, Neil has enjoyed  running a local practice. 

“One of the small delights is seeing classmates and friends from my Belmont Intermediate and Takapuna Grammar days as clients.

“Devonport is such a delightful place and it is little surprise that many families haven’t wanted to move away.”

His commitment to a local vet practice brought early starts and late finishes, along with emergency call-backs, “animals I’ve bought home with me for treatment, and even times I’ve slept on the floor of the clinic to provide overnight care”.

Jenni has also loved being involved in multiple generations of families, which in the Belmont/Bayswater area can be varied. Her patients ranged from those in Kāinga Ora houses to the wealthy living on the clifftop in Seacliffe Ave.  

Neil sold his practice to Anna Edwards in January but continued to work on as another vet, Lauren Young (nee Cornish) was on maternity leave.

He will perhaps return to fill in the odd day at the clinic, but in retirement he and Jenni plan more travel, including visiting daughter Rebecca and grandchild Maeve who live in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. 

Anna Edwards has been a Devonport local for nearly 20 years, which means many clients already know her. Anna and Neil share the same passion for owner operated vet practices

 “I’m happy that I’m leaving the clinic in good hands,” Neil says. 

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A family link spanning the years

The retirement of Neil and Jenni Waddell ends an era of Devonport medical history dating back almost a century.

Neil’s grandfather, James Noble Waddell, was a Devonport GP for more than 50 years from 1934, selling his practice to James Poor, who then sold it to Jenni in 1991.

Jenni recalls finding old records in her practice left by James Waddell. A few of his patients were still alive and being treated by her.  

She sold her practice to Third Age Health four years ago, but continued working for them on reduced hours.