Southern DHB should consult the private healthcare sector before releasing major health planning documents, Mercy Hospital chief executive Richard Whitney says.
Mr Whitney emailed Southern chief executive Brian Rousseau this week complaining the DHB's just-released cancer-control plan said one of the challenges in the South was a lack of private cancer care.
"This statement is most unfortunate and incorrect. Mercy Hospital provides a full range of chemotherapy services that are available within the public sector as well as a wide range of therapies not available through the public sector," the email said.
In May, after more than a year's planning, Mercy's private comprehensive chemotherapy service started, employing three oncologists who also work for Southern DHB.
At the board meeting yesterday, Mr Rousseau acknowledged the oversight.
"Mercy does have a fully comprehensive private chemo option," he said.
As a provider of secondary and tertiary healthcare services, Mercy should be consulted for regional healthcare planning, Mr Whitney told the Otago Daily Times.
"Where is the engagement when they're doing these sorts of things?"
Mr Whitney was "pleasantly surprised" at uptake for the chemotherapy service, with nine referrals so far. Mercy's catchment area included South Canterbury, which had produced one referral. Referrals were at 40% of present capacity, which could be increased depending on demand.
"We've had referrals at a higher rate than we would have anticipated."
Patients were a mix of privately paying, fully insured, and part-insured.
A novel DHB plan to offer unfunded chemotherapy drugs to paying patients was rejected last year by Health Minister Tony Ryall, a spokesman for whom said Mercy's planned service was a "complicating factor" in that decision.
The board's funding and finance general manager, Robert Mackway-Jones, told the ODT the plan would be updated in its annual review to include Mercy's service. It made sense to take private healthcare options into account, he said.
