The Otago and Southland district health boards' chief executive said elements of a health needs assessment commissioned by Wakatipu Health Trust were misleading, inaccurate and defied logic.
The trust's draft Queenstown Health Needs Assessment, released to the public last week, says a shortage of hospital beds in Queenstown means residents are not receiving fair access to health care, particularly inpatient and aged residential care.
It says three more beds are needed immediately and 13 more by 2031 to ensure Queenstown residents get the same level of access as other parts of the region and New Zealand.
Mr Rousseau said the actual average occupancy of Lakes District Hospital was less than 50%.
"To add three more resourced beds when current beds are not fully utilised defies logic."
He said the report's title was "quite misleading".
"The report isn't a health needs assessment, but rather a report comparing Lakes District Hospital and Aged Residential Care (ARC) activity levels with other rural hospital and ARC activity levels."
He said the impact of socioeconomic status on the need for hospital services was not assessed in the report.
"The relative socioeconomic affluence of the Queenstown area compared to the rest of New Zealand would suggest a lower hospitalisation rate."
It also should have taken into account advances in technology and health care when making conclusions about health needs into the future.
He said the assessment's assertion that Queenstown would need up to 90% of Southland DHB's funding for satellite hospitals by 2031 was "inaccurate".
From his calculations, it would be 8.5%.
"The percentage growth of over-65s is very high at 243%, but the actual numbers are only 1000 people. So the true impact is not as great."
The trust's report says the high rate of patient transfer from Lakes District Hospital - especially elderly to other hospitals - was significantly affecting patients and their families.
Mr Rousseau said Queenstown's population did not warrant more specialist services and its average hospital bed demand was less than 50% occupancy of 10 inpatient beds.
"It is neither operationally nor economically possible to provide the comprehensive range of healthcare professionals necessary to be able to manage the range and complexity of cases.
"Our attention needs to be focused at stabilising and transferring complex patients to the most appropriate point of care as quickly as possible," he said.
He acknowledged that the number of hospital-level aged-care beds in Queenstown was "tight" and access to local outpatient clinics required further investigation.
He said he hoped the trust would take his feedback into consideration for the final report.
Trust spokeswoman Maria Cole said Mr Rousseau's interpretation of the report was not surprising.
However, she said she needed to consult all trustees before making a more detailed response to his comments.
The report's author, Chris Fraser, could not be contacted last night.
