Q&As - Integration

People who use health services in Golden Bay, both now and in the future, will benefit from an integrated centre in the following ways:

• The amenities will be much more comfortable for both users and staff
• We'll keep rest home facilities for our frail elderly in Golden Bay
• We'll be better able to attract and retain professional staff because
• They will have more back up and support from fellow professionals
• There will be better information sharing about patient conditions and new ideas
• They will be able to provide safer and more reliable after-hours services
• It will be easier to coordinate preventative health care

This affects a lot of people's lives and it is important; we need to get it right and we're trying to accommodate a lot of different views. The project involves private and public health interests, different parts of the health industry, local, regional and national considerations, and most importantly the well-being of staff, rest home residents, patients and their loved ones.  In addition the project needs to offer a better service now and for many years into the future, yet still be affordable.

Having the range of medical expertise in one place; being able to share and complement that expertise; being able to offer a much better after hours and emergency service; being able to achieve savings on maintenance, purchasing, HR, phone and power, duplicated equipment, kitchens, gardens, reception, travel time etc.

There is a crisis in rural health. We have not been able to attract young doctors and female doctors here and at times we have struggled to attract nurses - even to beautiful Golden Bay. We cannot keep rest home facilities in Golden Bay without integration and we can improve the quality of our primary health services, by improving facilities and improving the way our professional staff works together more cohesively.

At the very least; the objective of integration is to retain and enhance the current services provided in Golden Bay.

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X ray services are seen as an important and integral part of services provided. However we are concerned that the current X-ray machine is old and will need replacing at some stage.

We are still working through some details of the model of care but some general - purpose beds are planned for the facility.

We don't know. It will depend, obviously on which option we go for. It will depend on when key decisions are made and how long it will take to get funding. Construction would probably be a year or so, maybe less.