A report on after-hours general practitioner services will go to the board of the Southern Primary Health Organisation on October 24.
While such meetings are not open to the public, and the PHO is not subject to the Official Information Act, chief executive Ian Macara indicated yesterday a willingness to discuss with the media the contents of the report.
Two instances of problems with after-hours care have been revealed in the last few days.
The Southland Times reported yesterday the southern region has the worst after-hours GP coverage for children aged under 6 in the country.
And on Saturday, the Otago Daily Times reported Alexandra could be without a general practitioner working after hours from December 1.
Mr Macara said the after-hours report, by PHO facilitator Valerie Meyer, of Queenstown, would cover both the Southland and Alexandra issues, and he was confident it would also "give us a pathway to the solutions".
In Alexandra's case, GPs had signalled "the onerousness and the stress that's on them".
Mr Macara said that would require the PHO to "sit down" with GPs and work through the issues.
"There will be ways we can deal to it. There always is."
Mr Macara, who has been in health administration for 30 years, said the sustainability of practices in rural areas was one of the PHO's most important issues.
He regarded the situation in Wanaka and Queenstown as "not so bad" because the towns had bigger populations and "reasonable numbers" of GPs.
"But if you go to Ranfurly and places like that, and Lumsden and Bluff even, they are down to one-practice GPs.
"If they get stressed and their lifestyle's not what they want, and they resign, the service pretty much stops."
