A new $400,000 facility is being built behind the Roxburgh Medical Centre in an effort to attract more visiting specialists to the town and ease pressure in the existing "cramped" facility.
Roxburgh Medical Services Trust chairman Geoff Smith said the problem was not so much getting the specialists to come to the town but finding space for them to work.
"At the moment we have almost outgrown the building ... we have been cramped."
The new facility would have a consultation room, waiting area, a "quite large" meeting room and a self-contained two-bedroomed cottage, which could house visiting specialists, locums and student nurses and doctors.
Mr Smith said the meeting room would also allow extra space for nurse-run classes and other services such as Plunket, though the trust was yet to discuss options with those service providers.
He said while they made space in the existing centre for visiting specialists and classes, "things get busier and change and we see the benefit [of having extra space].
"We already have a couple of doctors who do monthly visits, orthopaedics for example. Now there is an option to attract other specialists."
Roxburgh Community Board chairman Stephen Jeffery said it was a welcome addition and it could only be good for the community.
He said the new facility was not a bid to compete for specialists with Dunstan Hospital in Clyde or the Cromwell Medical Centre, as specialists generally chose which medical centre they visited and patients travelled accordingly.
Mr Smith said those specialists often travelled up from Dunedin to Wanaka or Queenstown and stopped in Central Otago so their patients did not have to make their way down to Dunedin.
An old two-bedroomed cottage, which has now been demolished, had been used for housing visitors, but Mr Smith said it had got "to the point where it wouldn't even have been a good student flat", and after seeking some advice, it was decided to replace it with a new facility.
The facility is expected to be finished by the end of the year.
Mr Smith said it was being funded by trust funds "accumulated over a period of time" and borrowed money.
