Residents of Queenstown
were getting only about half the health services of similar
sized centres in Otago and Southland, the Southland District
Health Board was told yesterday.
Health consultant Chris Fraser told the board meeitng in
Invercargill the resort's residents expected the same level
of services as people living in similar places.
"They don't expect more than their fair share, but they do
expect their fair share," he told the Southland District
Health Board yesterday.
He gave a brief present-ation to the board on the Queenstown
health needs assessment his company FraserGroup Consulting
recently completed for the Wakatipu Health Trust.
This looked at the needs of Queenstown in the areas of
hospital services, outpatient services, emergency care and
age-related residential care.
Queenstown had the fastest growing population of any place in
New Zealand and there were some parallels with the situation
which had occurred in South Auckland, where hospital services
had not kept up with population growth.
By 2031, the number of Queenstown hospital beds needed to
rise from 10 to 26 and residential services for the elderly
needed to grow sixfold.
Board chairman Paul Menzies said the board was acutely aware
of Queenstown's place as the pressure point of population
growth in Otago Southland.
There was a "pretty bright future" in terms of what could be
provided for the area.
Otago District Health Board chairman Errol Millar, who was
present at the Invercargill meeting, said the debate would
need to take place throughout the provinces on whether
service provided in Queenstown was deficient or whether some
other places were over-providing services.
Wakatipu Health Trust chairwoman Maria Cole emphasised the
need for quality community-based solutions to the town's
health services.
Speaking later in the meeting, boards' chief executive Brian
Rousseau said one of the challenges for Queenstown would be
deciding at what point there was sufficient critical mass to
warrant specialists living in the area.
General practitioners had suggested this was at least 10
years away.
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