The Wakatipu Sexual Health and Family Planning clinic is "an absolutely essential service" for young Queenstown people and it would be "a tragedy" if the funding cut meant a doctor could not work in the clinic, supporters say.
Dr Kathryn Smith was asked for her response to comments by clinic co-ordinator Gaylene Hastie, who told the Otago Daily Times she feared a "huge rise" in unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among Queenstown's youth, as a result of high school pupils being charged for consultations at the clinic.
Dr Smith, a Wakatipu High School board trustee, has worked in the clinic since it was started 11 years ago. She said the "absolutely essential service" also covered relationships, information and education and gave reassurance.
"Even putting $3 on a consultation charge will prevent them from using it. These kids haven't got any money.
"It would be an absolute tragedy for Queenstown's young people if we weren't able to keep the clinic operating with a doctor.
The satellite service we've got with the nurses is incredibly limited - not to say they're not fantastic nurses and don't do a wonderful job - but they are not able to write prescriptions for contraception and certain things."
When fully funded, there was a two-hour clinic on Mondays, a two-hour clinic at Remarkables Park Town Centre on Tuesday and a four-hour clinic on a Thursday, with two hours with a doctor.
On average, two to three high school pupils visited the clinic each session, Mrs Hastie said.
Dr Smith said the clinic was free for all New Zealanders aged under 25 until the Southern Primary Health Organisation (SPHO) stopped funding it in January. The QMC had subsidised the service for enrolled patients and for high school pupils, twice a week, but there was no funding for a doctor.
Wakatipu High School Parent Teachers' Association chairwoman Alyssandra Skerrett said yesterday the service gave young people the opportunity to ask questions they might be afraid to ask their parents and hear professional advice instead of advice from their peers.
"With no funding, it means it is a nurse-assisted unit only, which means they won't be able to do as many things by not having a doctor there.
"Youth go not only to talk about if they've got a sexually transmitted disease or not, or birth control ... A lot of kids, when they start to develop, they kind of think, 'Oh my God, is this normal?
Am I supposed to look like this?
'"They know it's confidential, they know they're not going to be judged, they know that nobody's going to see them go in there, because it's going to a doctor's office."
Adolescent sexual health was discussed during a parents' evening organised in the school last week.
Mrs Skerrett said a petition to restore clinic funding was discussed during the parents' evening and she would raise the idea with the six guest speakers and at the next PTA meeting.
