The surgical facility, a joint venture between Southern Cross Healthcare and Central Lakes Trust, offers general surgery, orthopaedic work, urology, gynaecology, ophthalmology, and some plastic surgery.
Executive chair Andrew Blair said navigating Covid and set-up logistics meant the open day had been a long time coming.
"We’ve been wanting to throw the doors open and show off what we’re extremely proud of, and so this was really our first opportunity to do it."
Comprised of three theatres, a seven-bay recovery room, nine day-stay rooms, and 13 inpatient beds, including two larger suites, the hospital’s layout was designed to follow the "flow" of the patient’s surgical journey, as well as maximising views of The Remarkables.
In its first six months of operation, the hospital has treated more than 370 patients, of which more than two thirds have been funded by the District Health Board or ACC, Mr Blair said.
"So although it might feel like a very expensive, private hospital, it’s accessible to a lot of people," he said.
"Hopefully when people come in the front door, their blood pressure drops ... normally when you go to a hospital your anxiety level rises, but we want people to feel welcome and safe," Mr Blair said.
The open day began at noon with 30 people queuing outside the doors, eager to come in for guided tours and a sausage sizzle.
"People are genuinely interested, there’s a young lady out there studying to be a nurse ... children of some of the people that work here can come and see where mum or dad works, because those theatres aren’t normally accessible for reasons of keeping things sterile," Mr Blair said.
After checking out the spaces, one visitor, due to have surgery in Invercargill, organised to instead have his procedure at the Queenstown facility.
For Mr Blair, the hospital was something of "a personal mission to get the community what it needs", and provide a convenience of access to the district.
"It was really important when we started planning this hospital, that we have a good relationship with the District Health Board, so that publicly funded patients don’t have to make that journey to Invercargill or Dunedin."
He said often patients would travel to those locations for surgery, only for procedures to be delayed due to the fact those hospitals also had to cater to trauma and acute cases.
"We don’t deal with that emergency treatment here, so there’s a lot more certainty that if you’re booked for surgery, it will go ahead."
Recently introducing cataract surgery to its repertoire, the hospital planned to have knee and hip replacements on the go by the end of the year, as well as using a yet-to-be-commissioned operating theatre for endoscopy.
"Endoscopy is a high volume high need ... the Southern region has got a bad incidence of bowel cancer so colonoscopies and gastroscopy is really important, whether for private patients or again to help out the public sector," Mr Blair said.
