Southern District Health Board member Richard Thomson has dismissed criticism of his call for the sickest patients to be seen first regardless of where they live, saying senior doctors' union executive director Ian Powell has missed the point.
Mr Powell, of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, yesterday accused Mr Thomson of an "unprincipled and unfair attack on senior doctors".
Senior doctors in both Otago and Southland were "working their butts off" to provide accessible quality services for patients, Mr Powell said.
The merger of the Otago and Southland boards further stretched the already over-stretched workforce, he said.
"They are holding services together on the smell of an oily rag. The contribution of their health bosses has been to increase the stretch of the rag and worsen the pong."
Mr Thomson, whose frustration at progress on prioritisation was aired at the board's hospitals' advisory committee on Wednesday, said he had been at pains to note he was calling on clinicians, management and governance to focus on the patient.
"The issue is about how we prioritise patients so that people are seen based on need, not location."
This required a district-based approach and the National Health Board report into Dunedin Hospital systems, "that Ian welcomed as I recall", charged the board with speeding up this process.
It was not about requiring senior doctors to do more work, but to have them engaged and driving an appropriate district-wide planning process, Mr Thomson said.
That required different ways of working.
"I challenged those that did not wish to be part of this to get on board."
It was about ensuring people in Bluff got the same degree of care as people in Dunedin.
"That is not happening."
