The Labour Party MP responded to a provocative stance taken by Waitaki MP Miles Anderson, of the National Party, who suggested Dunedin’s mental health staffing should be slashed by 100, and also that too much money was being poured into the $1.88billion regional hospital in Dunedin.
Money should instead have been directed to the growing Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes districts, he said.
Ms Leary said Mr Anderson had looked to pit Dunedin against Wānaka and his proposed solution to health shortages in Wānaka and surrounding areas was bizarre.
"It is no secret that the lower South suffers from a shortage of mental health workers across the board and some of the longest specialist wait times, including in Dunedin," she said.
"Moving health workers from one location to another resolves nothing."
Ms Leary, Labour’s mental health spokesperson, said the government appeared to be taking "a Queenstown-centric approach" to healthcare, including mental health.
Mr Anderson had spoken of inequities between Dunedin and the rest of the region.
"Those employed in the mental health side of things — Dunedin has 300-plus staff, and only another 100 are spread throughout the entire Otago-Southland area, so Wānaka have very few," he said.
"So for it to be equitable, 100 need to be taken out of Dunedin and put into other areas."
Ms Leary suggested the government ought to be more constructive.
"Cutting pay equity claims for burned-out mental health workers will only exacerbate the mental healthcare shortage, so why doesn’t Miles Anderson instead tell his Cabinet colleagues to reverse that short-sighted decision?"
Construction of the new hospital in Dunedin started under Labour and the project was reviewed by the National-led government once it gained power in the 2023 general election.
After delays, the government ended up approving continuation of the build and the project was not altered substantially.
Mr Anderson said the people who planned the hospital "didn’t give much thought to the outlying areas of North Otago and Central Otago".
"The Dunedin hospital makes sense with the med school and specialists, but if they thought about it, did it really need to be as big?"
Ms Leary said Mr Anderson seemed to lack understanding of the project.
He appeared to have "no depth of knowledge regarding the Dunedin hospital and its role in the wider region, including the need for tertiary-level care and a medical training facility".
