Announcing Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora’s (HNZ) new clinical services plan for the region at Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital yesterday, Mr Brown said HNZ’s board had ‘‘agreed in principle’’ on the new funding, starting with $25m from 2027-28 and a further estimated $103m over the following three years.
The expansion will focus on primary, diagnostic, maternity, obstetric and gynaecology, and outpatient services, and also aims to bring mental health and addiction support closer to home.
It will be supported by $52m in capital funding to upgrade existing facilities, and to modernise digital systems to better connect the region with specialist services, including the new Dunedin outpatient facility, Mr Brown said.
‘‘Work is already under way, including funded blood tests, X-rays, ultrasounds, telehealth, cancer care being brought closer to home, including more local IV infusions.’’
One of the first tangible improvements would be an expansion of Lakes District Hospital’s emergency department ‘‘within the next six to eight months’’.
‘‘This hospital does an amazing job — I think it’s around 18,000 to 20,000 presentations on an annual basis, and of course there’s huge numbers of visitors who come through this community.
‘‘I think it’s a 7%-8% increase in demand year on year, which is enormous, so there’s a need for more space.’’
There would also be increased access to diagnostics — including MRI for planned and acute needs — and improved point of care testing across the region.
Mr Brown said the next phase would be improved maternity services, with a focus on ‘‘expanding the number of births taking place here in this community’’.
HNZ’s board had agreed to the ‘‘direction of travel for a new local maternity model’’ in the region, and HNZ would work closely with midwives, obstetricians, GPs and other clinicians to design a service that’s ‘‘safe, sustainable and responsive to local needs’’.
Community-based mental health and addiction services would also be expanded, with more local assessment and treatment, crisis care and residential care options, and safe spaces for mental health crisis assessment and support.
Mr Brown said about 70% of New Zealanders who lived more than two hours from a base hospital live in the Otago Central-Lakes area.
The new plan had identified where services were under pressure, and would help ensure they kept pace with the needs of the Otago Central-Lakes community ‘‘now and into the future’’.
Southland National MP Joseph Mooney said he was ‘‘incredibly excited’’ by the new plan, the culmination of three years’ work by a wide group of stakeholders in the region to ‘‘try and push for more service delivery and infrastructure for this region’’.
‘‘A lot of people said it was impossible, but a lot of people have come together to turn the impossible into reality.’’
That work had occurred under the umbrella of the Southern Lakes Health Trust, a collaboration involving the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago District Councils, local MPs, clinicians, rural health providers and Māori health providers.
Mr Mooney said the operational and capital spending announced by Mr Brown was ‘‘a lot of new money that wasn’t coming and now is coming’’.
HNZ had also recognised its population modelling data has not been adequate for at least two decades.
‘‘It’s now firmly on the map that this is going to be a bigger population, resident-wise, than Dunedin in 15 years’ time.’’
That meant there was now a ‘‘future pathway’’ towards a general hospital somewhere in the region, although detailed planning is probably five to 10 years away, he said.
‘‘That’s hugely exciting ... it’s the first time it’s been on the map as a potential option for the Otago Central-Lakes region, which is huge.’’
Southern Lakes Health Trust independent convener Helen Foot said she was ‘‘absolutely delighted’’ by yesterday’s announcement.
‘‘I’ve chatted to a few people since who feel it was a bit vague, but I think if you understand how health works, you would see what a huge step forward this is.
‘‘This is something that’s never before been heard of — we’ve never had the words ‘general hospital located in Otago Central Lakes’ stated before.’’
It came off the back of years of work to identify the region’s needs and issues — information that had gone into the trust’s report to Mr Brown a year ago.
‘‘We thought it would all be obstacles, it would be too huge, and we didn’t know if we’d get there ... we just kept pursuing it from all different angles.
‘‘Now we have something that has real budget, real momentum, and the end game is still a hospital.’’
‘‘So it’s a turning point — whether it’s an increase in the budgets for all southern health services, it may not — it might be [HNZ] is expecting to find efficiencies elsewhere as they move services through to our region.’’
Meanwhile, the trust would continue working on expanding private healthcare services in the region, she said.
There was a lot of opportunity to have the region’s health workforce working across the public and private sectors.
‘‘This is about privately-financed buildings the public system can lease, and the opportunity for co-locations with the private sector that would make the most of the workforce we have, which, despite our incredibly rapid growth and all our population projections, is still a smallish area to provide a full suite of services across.’’
