A Queenstown doctor says he is "not happy" with the process of electing two general practitioners to the board of the Southern Primary Health Organisation (PHO).
Dr Hans Raetz, of the Queenstown Medical Centre, said the PHO constitution stated the GP election was supposed to be a two-month process but the actual time to nominate a candidate shrank to three working days and a weekend.
"The first thing we [electoral CP candidates] heard about it was Wednesday evening, that we had to have nominations for the PHO GP representations in by close of business Monday. We thought that was a little bit off . .
." Dr Raetz said GPs had hoped the new PHO would "pack more of a punch" in representing primary care at the Southern DHB level. However, he believed this had not happened. The Southern PHO had taken longer to set up than anticipated and it was Dunedin-centred, he said.
"A lot of services have been removed from rural areas because PHO guidelines are they have to look after the vulnerable populations first, so you're going to end up with 90% of the one pot of funding being spent on Dunedin and Invercargill because they've got the biggest underprivileged populations.
"I don't think we're going to see that funding coming back unless we make a lot of noise."
Dr Raetz said he stood for election because he did not feel the PHO was connected to communities and the GPs on whom it relied. Primary care providers needed to be represented around the Southern District Health Board (DHB) table as two-thirds of the more than $800 million in Government funding of the DHB went into community health centres, he said.
He hoped the election process would be smoother next time and said he may stand again.
"We'll see how it goes. I have enough to do in Queenstown."
Southern PHO chief executive Ian Macara said the PHO's lawyer handled the election in a transparent, fair, and arms-length manner.
The process was "precisely consistent with our constitution".
To charges the PHO was Dunedin-centred, he said the chairman of the PHO's community advisory group, Tony Hill, was chairman of Wakatipu PHO.
The two GP representatives re-elected to the board were Prof Murray Tilyard and Dr Doug Hill, both of Dunedin.
