Health plan consultations being held

Chris Swann.
Chris Swann.
Waitaki District Health Services (WDHS) will take its draft plan for "sustainable health services" to community health providers in two consultation sessions today.

Last night, WDHS met  general practitioners, and with 60 people confirmed to attend during three sessions over the two days, WDHS chairman Chris Swann said the "buy-in" to the process was encouraging.

"It’s great to see the community involvement in it," Mr Swann said.

"This next part of this whole process is around having all parties with a vested interest having input into it. That’s an important part of helping redefine what the needs of the community are, what their expectations [are], what they require, what they see as important. They are our customers to a degree."

After rejecting a proposed 5% funding cut in 2015, WDHS entered into contract negotiations with  the Southern District Health Board (SDHB) in September last year. The current contract between the two sides expires on June 30. The planned changes in healthcare in the Waitaki district has had its detractors.

Oamaru Hospital’s Dr Peter Rodwell slammed the draft "Model of Care" in the Otago Daily Times earlier this month as a "dumbed-down service" that could cost more.

He did not reply to an email yesterday.

In a statement to the ODT  yesterday, WDHS deputy chairwoman Helen Algar said the way healthcare was run in Waitaki now was how the system "evolved" after WDHS was established in 1998 to own and operate Oamaru Hospital.

After a Waitaki health services review, conducted jointly by the WDHS and SDHB last year, the first draft "Model of Care" was finished in February and staff were consulted in March.

The feedback from that consultation period was used to create the current draft document and would result in feedback on the plan by May 5. The final plan was expected to be approved by WDHS and SDHB before the end of June.

About 130 invitations were sent to representatives of 83 organisations for the by-invitation community consultation, Mrs Algar said.

"These ranged from health providers and groups with health links to those representing special interest groups, such as the elderly and ethnic organisations, including Ngai Tahu and Pasifika."

Mr Swann yesterday said he did not want to discuss the detail of the planned changes,  but some staffing changes had already occurred at the hospital, including "taking the administrative burden away from nurses".

"We redefined a couple of roles and we will continue to be redefining them," he said.

"We’ve added some roles. We have increased some staffing levels in certain areas."

Mr Swann said the draft "Model of Care" was no longer as general as the review recommendations that both sides had agreed to.

And WDHS was still on track for a July 1 implementation.

"This model is not going to be implemented all in one day," he said.

"It’s not going to be ‘old’ at midnight on the 30th [of June] and ‘new’ at one minute past 12am on the 1st."

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz

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