The Southland District Health Board expects more than 200 submissions on the proposed new model for health care in the Wakatipu.
Submissions closed yesterday on the discussion document "Delivering Wakatipu Health Services in the Future", but a final total would not be known until Monday.
By Thursday there had been 170 lodged.
Board chief operating officer Lexie O'Shea said she was pleased to have received "such a significant number of well-considered submissions" on the proposal and detailed analysis would begin on Monday.
Chief executive support manager Cherie Wells said she would be collating all the submissions for the board. "I wouldn't be surprised if we get 200.
I collated the submissions on the merger and we received 212, so in comparison the response to the Wakatipu health document is really good."
A feedback document summarising the submissions would be available on www.sdhb.govt.nz in the coming weeks, she said.
The proposal included refurbishing and adding a storey to the existing hospital at Frankton; establishing a "one-stop shop" integrated family health care centre; creating additional aged-care beds, specialist outpatient clinics, day-case elective surgery and community nursing services; establishing 24-hour general practice services; and non-emergency cases no longer being handled in the emergency department.
The centre would be governed by a local governance group.
More than 300 people attended two community forums in Queenstown last month to hear about the changes and ask questions.
At that time there had been just 20 submissions on the proposal.
