Meetings to push Dunstan's claim for CT scanner

The company that runs Dunstan Hospital is upping the ante in the tug-of-war over where a CT scanner should be based, by organising public meetings to garner support for its case.

Earlier this month, Southern District Health Board chairman Joe Butterfield said the decision on where an inland Otago CT scanner should be located must be made by the Queenstown and Central Otago communities.

The National Health Board report on Wakatipu health services said the scanner should be based at the Lakes District Hospital in Queenstown to serve the wider area, but Central Otago Health Services Ltd (COHSL), the company behind Dunstan Hospital at Clyde, has been lobbying for three years to have one based there.

The district health board's stance, with the issue being "thrown back to the communities", had spurred the health company into action, COHSL chairman Russell McGeorge said yesterday.

"We feel that now is the time to share our thoughts and to see what support is out there for a scanner to be based at Dunstan.

We're holding the public meetings to confirm the community is behind us - we don't think that's an issue, because we get marvellous support from the community, but this will confirm that."

Meetings, all starting at 7.30pm, will be held at Cromwell on December 13, in the Cromwell Presbyterian Church; at Alexandra on December 14, in the Alexandra Memorial Theatre; and at Wanaka on December 15, in the Lake Wanaka Centre.

"Our focus, of course, will be Dunstan's case. We're not providing any comparison with the case for one based in the Wakatipu area. It's not a fight.

"We'll lay the information out, the population, demographics, geography, the clinical data, all of which go into the mix when making a decision, and say here's what we think.

"People have been asking us when are you guys going to move on this, so that's what we're doing," Mr McGeorge said.

The health company had talked to Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean about the issue and had also made the first overtures to canvass funding support from some charitable trusts in the area, he said.

At its meeting this month, the district health board noted the provision of the facility would require significant community funding for both capital and running costs from the wider Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago region.

Various avenues of fundraising were being explored, including grants from charitable trusts.

"Once we've confirmed the support we believe is out there, we'll obviously go back to the DHB (district health board) with that information, to say we've been talking to the community and here's their endorsement." Although the first round of meetings were within the area served by Dunstan Hospital, the health company was prepared to hold similar meetings in the Wakatipu area, Mr McGeorge said.

"This is the first step. Run these and get the initial feedback, then we're happy to run more meetings for whatever group asks us; it makes sense to do that. Given the timeframe, those later meetings probably won't be until after Christmas."

lynda.van.kempen@odt.co.nz