Southern Lakes Health Project independent convener Helen Foot. PHOTO: SUPPLIED An estimated $11 million is ‘‘flying out’’ of Central Otago and the Queenstown Lakes districts in air transfers rather than being spent on healthcare locally, Southland MP Joseph Mooney says. And a local trust advocating for long-term improvement of public health services says with the major improvements in Queenstown healthcare services signalled by Health Minister Simeon Brown last month — those millions spent flying patients to larger hospitals could now be saved. Mr Mooney said air transfers of patients from Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital to base hospitals in Dunedin and Invercargill were costly for patients’ family members having to find accommodation in those cities. Those transferred patients could also disrupt operations at base hospitals. Mr Mooney said he had heard of people in base hospitals awaiting elective surgery who were bumped for injured skiers or mountain bikers flown from inland Otago. The $11 million in air transfers was ‘‘money that’s flying out of the region, and it could be used right here to deliver healthcare’’. In the 2024-25 year, there were 496 air transfers from the Central Otago-Queenstown Lakes area with each transfer costing $21,000 on average, or $10,416,000 over a 12-month period. Southern Lakes Health Project independent convener Helen Foot said, allowing for longer flights, the 12-month figure was likely $11 million-plus. The bulk of the patient-transfer flights from the area would be from Queenstown, Ms Foot said. Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital managed ‘‘a significantly higher trauma workload’’ compared with other rural hospitals in the region, she said. The high cost of air ambulances for the area was linked to high visitor numbers and a concentration of high-risk activities. ‘‘Many of these [patients] require surgical or higher-level care, which increases the number of helicopter transfers.’’ Ms Foot said the Lakes District Hospital had an open-access emergency department, unlike Alexandra’s Dunstan Hospital — ‘‘they present to us first, and are subsequently transferred onward’’. Unlike Dunstan, she said there was no high-dependency unit at the Lakes District Hospital. ‘‘So some medical patients must be transferred urgently for monitoring and nursing reasons, which would typically be managed locally in a better-resourced facility.’’ Then there were maternity transfers. In May, Waitaki MP Miles Anderson, the health minister, Mr Brown, and Mr Mooney gathered in Queenstown to announce a $180 million boost to healthcare in the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes area. One of the first noticeable changes would be the emergency department expansion at Lakes District Hospital with work beginning in six to eight months, Mr Brown said at the time. Another key focus was supporting more people to give birth locally rather than travelling to hospitals in Dunedin and Invercargill, he said. scoop@odt.co.nz
