There is no evidence the Lakes District Hospital is clinically unsustainable and a $2 million jump in running costs was a one-off investment to improve the safety of patient care, a health union says.
However, the Southern District Health Board's provider arm executive team Southland said the board simply could not afford to continue with the past levels of funding increases for the Wakatipu hospital.
The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists launched its latest salvo against the board yesterday, in response to comments made by board chief executive Brian Rousseau in his community presentation about the board's proposed integrated family health centre, in Frankton, last week.
Association executive director Ian Powell, of Wellington, said the closest Mr Rousseau had come to evidence to support the assertion the hospital was clinically unsustainable was a so-called desktop review which was never written up.
"All that exists is a letter ... which was written over three years later, contains no statistical analysis and does not say what Mr Rousseau suggests it says," Mr Powell said.
He said Mr Rousseau's comment the direct costs of running the hospital had increased by more than $2 million, from $3.97 million in 2005-06 to $5.99 million in 2009-10, an increase of 51%, were "disreputably misleading".
Another doctor had been employed at the hospital, but it was a one-off cost investment to improve safety, he said.
"It does not mean that costs increase at the same rate every year."
Mr Powell said the actual cost increase was "a mere 2%". The direct costs of running the hospital were about $6 million, less than 1% of the board's total spending of about $800 million.
"If a 2% increase on less than 1% of DHB spending is financially unsustainable, then I'll believe in the tooth fairy," Mr Powell said.
However, the provider arm's executive team, Lexie O'Shea, chief operating officer (Southland) and DHB deputy chief executive; chief medical officer (Southland) David Tulloch and chief nursing and midwifery officer Leanne Samuel said in a joint statement Mr Rousseau's presentation clearly stated the year-by-year increases.
"Whilst the increase in 2009-10 was 2% more than 2008-09, the year before that was 17.6%, and the year before that was 9.4%. If Lakes District Hospital (LDH) was funded on the same basis as other rural hospitals in Otago-Southland, it would receive $3.6 million per annum and would be clinically unsustainable, as LDH simply couldn't continue with the current clinical staff complement."
The trio said the board could not afford to continually increase the staffing at the hospital while there were options for some of the work to be "safely and effectively" undertaken by board-funded community health service providers, at a reduced overall cost. The board leadership team said it was committed to working with the hospital's doctors, nurses and management to explore ways to safely reduce costs.
"The DHB is in the process of agreeing a terms of reference with the unions for this work and we look forward to some innovation from this," the statement said.
