The Southern District Health Board's proposals for Wakatipu health services are to serve short-term political and financial agendas, not the community, medical staff at Lakes District Hospital say.
The staff's "unified" submission, signed by nine senior doctors, is opposed to the board's proposal to turn the hospital into an integrated health-care centre - a "one-stop shop" for primary and secondary services.
"We are concerned that health-care planning in Queenstown is being approached in a piecemeal fashion and that the resulting confusion is going to allow ill-conceived solutions to be forced upon us for political reasons," the submission says.
The staff felt they should have been involved earlier in the decision-making process.
"We feel that a longer consultation process, based on adequate and realistic assessment of service requirements, would improve the likelihood of development of a sustainable model," it says.
The board's discussion document was only one potential model of care and contained very little detail and costing.
"There has been inadequate consideration of the impact of visitor numbers on the provision of health care in Queenstown.
One of the main causes of Lakes District Hospital's ongoing budget deficit is free or unfunded medical care provided to visitors," it says.
A third of the hospital's 5000 annual patients were non-New Zealand residents, receiving free care.
It said Lakes District and Dunstan hospitals could share services such as maternity, paediatrics or radiology.
The staff were "absolutely" opposed to GPs being the gatekeepers of the proposed health centre's emergency department and deciding who would be allowed to qualify for free emergency care.
"We have many concerns with regard to this model ...
Primary care doctors performing triage have a well-defined conflict of interest, as triaging a patient into the state-funded system will result in reduction of their income," it says.
Merging services with a large primary care provider like Queenstown Medical Centre would lead to a "near monopoly" of health-care provision.
"We are concerned that the DHB has already got a more detailed idea of how this structure will work, with a preferred provider in mind. It is essential that there is an open tender process to select service providers," the doctors' submission says.
The staff were also concerned about the proposed four-day limit on admission length and the lack of provision for maternity and mental health services in the model.
The large new facility was an expensive and unnecessary option.
"We do not believe that the co-location of primary and secondary care will be beneficial ... There is no evidence that this model has worked well overseas and the expected savings have not been seen.
"A change from a hospital [to a health centre] is more consistent with a downgrade than an upgrade," it says.
"We ask that no further work is undertaken to progress this model before more strategic planning is done and other options discussed."
A total of 266 submissions were received, The SDHB is likely to make a decision on Lakes District Hospital at its August meeting.
