During a meeting on Monday, SDHB chief executive Chris Fleming had an informal conversation with SDHB board member and Invercargill city councillor Lesley Soper in which he said it would need to pay for some specialists to stay overnight in Invercargill due to roadworks in Otatara.
The Invercargill City Council started work to upgrade the Stead St stopbank this week, resulting in changes to traffic flow in the area for about six months.
People will be able to travel from central Invercargill to Otatara via Stead St but people in Otatara who want to get to Invercargill will have to do so via Otatara and Bay Rds, adding about about 10 minutes to the trip.
SDHB medicine, women’s and children’s health general manager Simon Donlevy said staff had approached him mid last month about the matter.
He said the board had spoken to council representatives to understand if the staff might be able to travel to Invercargill from Otatara via Stead St in an emergency, but had been advised this was not possible.
An assessment was carried out and more than 10 staff had been identified as being affected by the roadworks, and further support staff were possibly affected.
‘‘There are some emergency situations which are time critical and an additional 10 minutes can make the difference between a good and bad outcome for a patient,’’ he said.
‘‘We have not engaged a specific accommodation provider, however we estimate that the cost of providing accommodation for affected staff will be approximately $3500 per week.’’
The Stead St stopbank upgrade is a key climate resilience project for the council.
The work is estimated to be completed by April.
