The ''bad'' condition of the ''old cottage hospital'' in Palmerston has prompted a community fundraising drive to build a new medical centre to keep doctors in the district.
East Otago Community Health Trust chairwoman Mary O'Connell, of Palmerston, said $900,000 was needed to build a new East Otago health centre and demolish the existing centre - known as ''the old cottage hospital'' - on the same site in District Rd.
The hospital needed major repairs, she said.
''It has come to the end of its life.''
The hospital had been open for more than 80 years and was used by nearly 3000 patients in a catchment including Warrington, Herbert, Morrisons and Macraes.
The trust owned and leased the hospital to South Link Health Services to operate the medical practice.
The trust was formed in 2003 to buy the hospital because it feared without the facility, doctors would leave the district.
Now the community needed to support the rebuild plan.
''If we don't supply some reasonable premises, they [doctors] are just not going to want to come to country areas.''
Oceana Gold had pledged $150,000 for the project and the trust had saved $150,000.
The trust would start applying for grants and was accepting money from the community, including $3000 from East Otago Lions, and would take a loan for the remainder.
The new centre would have the same staffing levels - three doctors and four or five nurses - and it would remain a South Link practice.
Some patients were ''genuinely upset'' the old hospital could be demolished, but she doubted the sentimentality would stop the rebuild.
''A lot of them don't understand how bad the building is ... It's an old hospital it would cost so much money to do up. You'd be throwing good money after bad. It just isn't feasible.''
East Otago Health GP Prof Campbell Murdoch (72), who would continue to practice in the new centre, said it was difficult to get doctors to work at a country practice and the proposed new centre was a ''very important'' tool to attract and keep doctors.
''Young doctors have become very afraid of working where there is not a lot of support.''
