Dave Cull, Chair
We’re at Alert Level 1! Thank goodness.
I feel I need to express another round of appreciation, to our health workers, our community, and for our great fortune to be New Zealanders. Thank you all.
Southern DHB can now resume planning for the coming year, albeit with a raft of new factors to take into account. The immediate focus is naturally on the Annual Plan, which will necessarily be different from that envisaged only three months back.
In that regard it is interesting to reflect on what has changed, and what directions are reinforced.
Certainly, our thinking needs to be informed by the reality of the pandemic encircling the globe, and the possibility of worse to come. We have learned that we can mobilise and adapt, but it was a stretch, and we need to lift our Public Health capacity, not just to combat epidemics, but across the preventative health spectrum.
At the same time, the experience has confirmed much of our already-stated direction for the future of health care in the South, and if anything has lent greater urgency to achieving our goals.
The Southern health system’s model of care needs to integrate primary and secondary provision to improve patient access and flow, right from diagnosis through hospital treatment to follow-up. Much of that will be increasingly via telemedicine.
This is not only essential for achieving improved health outcomes for our communities. It is also critical if the new Dunedin hospital is to be utilised to its fullest potential.
To achieve those ambitions, Southern DHB – both clinicians and management – will need intense, good faith collaboration with WellSouth PHO, the Alliance Leadership Team and all our NGO and Iwi based health care partners.
Now, more than ever, the health and well-being of all our community depends on us truly working as a united Southern Health system. I can’t speak highly enough, of the contributions of all our health care partners. That includes WellSouth PHO, general practices, rural hospitals, midwives, pharmacists, aged residential care and the many organisations (Iwi and NGOs) that provide important primary health-care services in our communities every day, as well as the Community Health Council, which continues to provide constructive advice and feedback as a voice for patients and whānau.
The past months have surely tested us, as a health system, as a community, and as individual health workers of all stripes. We know that supporting equity of health provision across our diverse populations, and delivering services across our vast geographic area, remains a pressing challenge.
But these last months have also taught us much and revealed latent strengths. We are committed to drawing upon these to deliver the very best health system for our patients and their whānau in the Southern district.
Check out these other Better Health South Stories:
Hooray! We made it to Alert Level 1!
Bowel screening up and running again
Clear the air to stay well this winter!
Telehealth means distance, and lockdown , less of a barrier
There’s no better time to support Smokefree than now!
