A clinically led review at Oamaru Hospital this month will not find further savings for the hospital, an Oamaru general practitioner says.
‘‘There is no fat in the system,'' Dr Jon Scott, who has worked in Oamaru for the past 20 years, said.
‘‘They can't possibly make any further savings, they [Oamaru Hospital] are not getting any joy at all from Dunedin Hospital.''
Dr Scott said he was sceptical of the review, starting this month, which the Southern District Health Board and Waitaki District Health Services (WDHS) agreed to as a part of an ongoing funding disagreement.
The number of beds at Oamaru Hospital dropped from 30 to 24 this week.
WDHS chief executive Robert Gonzales cited ongoing underfunding and called the bed cuts a ‘‘starting point'' for cuts in face of an expected proposed 10% funding cut when WDHS negotiates a new contract with the district health board for the 2017-18 financial year.
Dr Scott said about half of Oamaru's 12 GPs attended a meeting hosted by Oamaru Hospital managers in mid-March, before the announcement of bed number cuts.
Hospital management at the time said the 20% cut would mean beds would be full more frequently at the hospital, which previously reached capacity four to six times a year.
Now, with the reduced bed numbers, capacity could be reached on average once every two weeks.
‘‘If you've got fewer beds and the same demand, or increasing demand, then obviously [patients] are going to have to go somewhere,'' Dr Scott said.
‘‘That's either going to mean a lot more transfers down to Dunedin, a lot more pressure on the clinicians to either send people home in potentially dangerous situations ... it's going to cost a lot more regarding extra transport for St John.‘‘
There are going to be people who have, say, surgery or strokes, people who have hip surgery, knee surgery, or any other kind of surgery, or who have had heart attacks or strokes, in Dunedin, who would want to come back to Oamaru Hospital because all their friends or family are here in Oamaru, but who can't if they can't transfer back to Oamaru Hospital.''
New Zealand Doctor, New Zealand's fortnightly medical newspaper, reported Dunedin GP, and former West Coast ADP chief medical officer and Greymouth GP, Dr Carol Atmore, would lead the review.
