New DHB 'would benefit' Wakatipu

Wakatipu patients would benefit greatly from a merger of the Otago and Southland district health boards, Queenstown doctor Hans Raetz said yesterday.

Dr Raetz, of the Queenstown Medical Centre, said it would remove "patch protection" and the "ring-fencing" of funding.

Queenstown Medical Centre doctors say in a release that the separate funding streams of the Southland and Otago district health boards had created "insurmountable obstacles", making co-operative work arrangements impossible to implement during the past seven years.

Dr Raetz said by pooling the funding of both boards, the likes of cardiac patients in Queenstown and those needing other specialists' services catered for only in Dunedin would benefit.

At present, a cardiac patient needing to be seen at a public clinic had to travel to Invercargill to see the same specialist who serviced Queenstown privately because the specialists were contracted from Dunedin by the Southland board, he said.

"The Southland District Health Board gets a certain amount of funding for their area and they don't want us to refer outside their area."

Under a merger, the arrangements could be a lot more flexible and patients could be referred directly to the base hospital that best suited their needs, Dr Raetz said.

Queenstown could also look at working co-operatively with Dunstan Hospital so patients throughout the region could benefit from Dunstan's elderly care, cardiovascular and respiratory strengths and Queenstown's trauma specialisation.

A new unified board was the "sensible next step" and Southland doctors' concerns needed to be balanced against the likely health gain for Central Otago and rural Southland patients, he said.

Queenstown patients could access Otago consultants under a new regional board, which would control all funding.

There could be a few rearrangements to the way cardiology patients were serviced in Queenstown, which would "suit the consultants rather than the accountants in Invercargill" and definitely improve healthcare, Dr Raetz said.

All Queenstown doctors had been consulted on a proposal that would be discussed at next week'sSouthland District Health Board meeting, where the merger that would "significantly enhance" services in Queenstown would be voted on.

"It looks like the (Lakes district) hospital system will possibly change under the proposal, but it will be advantageous to Queenstown," Dr Raetz said. He would not elaborate until the proposal had been released next week.

Meanwhile, Southland nurses have joined a group of senior doctors in urging wider consultation before a decision is made on the proposed merger.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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