Alliance chief executive Michelle Thompson said it has run the rural mental health contract for the Ministry of Health for four years and she fears no one else will pick up the work.
The alliance board effectively put the organisation on hold from Friday but she was hopeful it would restart again saying rural NZ has lost a trusted, credible conduit to the Government through which to promote solutions to rural health and wellbeing.
“We are so bitterly disappointed for so many reasons but I hope this Government, because it campaigned hard on equitable access to health services, increasing health resources and boosting provincial NZ, will look at it again. It seems so incongruous.”
