The chairman of the National Health Board panel invited to fix the Wakatipu health crisis says he took the job on the understanding there was no preconceived outcome.
The board will hold its first public meeting on the issue in Queenstown tonight.
Dr Peter Foley, a GP in Napier and immediate past-chairman of the New Zealand Medical Association, was appointed chairman of the independent panel tasked with offering the Southern DHB recommendations for the provision of Wakatipu health services, including the Lakes District Hospital.
The issue had been simmering for years and several reviews completed by the former Southland DHB, its successor the Southern DHB and the Wakatipu Health Trust, had not produced any decisions, Dr Foley said yesterday.
"The Southern DHB invited the National Health Board to try and sort out the impasse they seem to have with trying to please everybody and not being able to make a decision and therefore creating uncertainly within the community, the patients and the medical health work force.
"The panel has been empowered, and I have taken on the job of leading that panel, on the understanding that we need to reach a decision, that we'll present it to the Southern DHB, hopefully in August, which is a pretty tight timeframe."
Dr Foley said the process and decision had to follow principles, be transparent, equitable and sustainable, and have longevity.
"This is all about the community and all about the patients. I do not know what the decision we will get to until I hear it from the community and I have been down there with the panelists over the last two weeks."
The purpose of the meeting tonight was to let the public know the panel was there, it was external from the Southern DHB, to listen to the community, then work out if what they wanted could be delivered in a safe, high-quality, affordable and sustainable service, he said.
Drop-in clinics would be organised over the next few weeks for residents who did not feel comfortable speaking in a public meeting, he said.
Dr Foley will join panelists consumer advocate David Russell and a representative standing in for Christchurch Hospital emergency department clinical director Dr Angela Pitchford, who was on leave.
The meeting will start in the Remarkables Room, in Rydges Lakeland Resort Queenstown, on Lake Esplanade, at 7.30pm.
