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There’s a bloody big fishhook in Otago-Southland DHB’s plan to hive off Queenstown’s hospital and I hope Saturday’s health hui can extract it from what’s otherwise probably an OK proposal.
Stripped down, the hospital deal looks like this to me.
Little Lakes District Hospital goes to a “governance body” – let’s say Wakatipu Health Trust – which then sub-leases to an “operator”. Queenstown Medical Centre, perhaps.
The carrot is that LDH gets a serious upgrade – though we don’t yet know who’ll pay for it.
The fishhook is, we’ll start paying for something at LDH that we presently get for free. And which Dunedin and Invercargil
Docs and nurses wade in
Key medical staff at Lakes District Hospital have joined the great Wakatipu health debate by voicing concerns about Southland District Health Board’s new services proposal.
In a statement to Mountain Scene last Friday, a group of LDH doctors and nurses highlighted their worries, adding “we believe the community should demand clear answers and commitments ... before moving forwards”.
Their main concerns are:
Queenstowners may no longer have the choice to access free emergency healthcare
The proposed integrated family health centre will expand GP services and day surgery, but maybe at the expense of acute inpatient beds, reducing the ability to treat local people in Queenstown
The proposal only mentions the expansion of primary care – what about secondary hospital services which will be needed with rapid population growth?
LDH’s relationship with other hospitals and the future of services like maternity aren’t clear
More patients may be transferred out of Queenstown
How much will it cost? Who’ll pay? Will it solve the region’s health problems?
Have your say
What: Public health forum
When: Saturday
Session one: 9.30-11.30am
Session two: 2-4pm
Where: City Impact Church
MC: Oamaru Hospital Board chair George Berry
Who: All welcome
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l patients will continue to get for free.
I’m talking treatment at LDH’s emergency department which doesn’t require hospitalisation.
Parents rush a fevered infant to ED late at night, say, worried about meningitis and are relieved when the duty doctor reassures them, settles the baby with medication and sends the family home.
At the new LDH, that’ll be at least $55 to Queenstowners – but not to Dunedinites or Invercargillites at their hospitals.
Right across the country people are going to hospital emergency wings when they shouldn’t so I’m not opposed to ED charges – simply the unequal application of them in this proposal.
If it’s good enough to charge Queenstowners then put the same charges in at Dunedin and Southland Hospitals too.
For years, health board members have blithely assured me they spread their health bucks evenly across the whole DHB bailiwick. But it’s bollocks.
Southland DHB is purely parochial and Dunedin’s DHB is proving just as insular. They’re stinging “rich” Queenstowners to subsidise free ED down in Dunedin and Invercargill.
We should only start paying at our ED when Dunedin and Invercargill patients begin paying at theirs. Not a minute sooner.
Otherwise ED payments will become a “Queenstown tax” and there’s no telling where that could end. You’d have the New Zealand Transport Agency putting in a toll booth at Kawarau Falls to fund a new bridge and Police National Headquarters hitting up our council for new cop cars.
If you count yourself a Queenstowner, please go to one of the two public pow-wow sessions on Saturday.
A big turnout is vital. The hospital deal is worth supporting – but only if the fishhooks are extracted.
And only public pressure will do that.
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