"I'm not an expert and I don't profess to be but it's clear that the one hospital is not able to cope", he said. That was shown in one way with the hospital recently being at capacity.
Hawke's Bay needed proper medical services to accommodate a growing population, he said. The region had become an incredibly popular place to live and all parts of society, including medical, needed to cater to the increase in population.
Napier resident Robyn Dorday has started a campaign after hearing about recent capacity issues at the hospital and about surgeries needing to be put on hold.
She sent a letter to Health Minister David Clark on January 22 outlining the need for a hospital in Napier and planned to start an action group with people from the community to "ask for a 24-hour emergency care with 100 beds and all the facilities to support this city".
Before Napier Hospital closed the region had 815 beds. Now, with a growing population, there are only 364, Mrs Dorday said.
"[Hawke's Bay Hospital] hasn't the beds for the growing population of Hawke's Bay."
Napier also needs a hospital with an operating theatre and something that could sustain a major earthquake, because if Napier is cut off from Hastings people would have nowhere to go, she said.
"We are at crisis in normal times, what happens in a disaster? It wouldn't cope," she said.
"We're the only city in New Zealand of this population that hasn't got a hospital."
Napier MP Stuart Nash said realistically a hospital in Napier would not happen but what is needed is a level of service that meets the needs of the city and to continue to be aware of changing needs.
"The DHB is working well towards that, we have a 24/7 medical service."
Mr Clark said the Government has "no plans to reinstate a separate hospital for Napier".
"As Health Minister one of my top priorities is improving access to affordable, quality primary care. We want to reduce our reliance on hospital care through prevention and early intervention wherever possible," he said.
"All New Zealanders deserve access to quality hospital services, and many communities around the country are well served by regional hospitals."
Hawke's Bay District Health Board chief executive Dr Kevin Snee said residents of the region were fortunate to have hard-working clinicians providing many high-quality services.
"Because Hawke's Bay centralised its main hospital service on to one site, it resulted in a much more efficient structure than previously with two hospitals," Dr Snee said.
"The answer is not to recreate inefficiencies through opening satellite beds, but to continue to enhance existing services that we have."
For example, rather than having a poorly used birthing facility in Napier which was able to support around 60 to 70 births a year there is now a low-risk birthing facility, Waioha, available to hundreds of women, he said.
"This is a great example of being able to create better services, through efficiencies and centralisation of resources, whilst at the same time investing in creating more outpatients and access to diagnostic services at Wellesley Road [Napier Health].
"Through prudent management of our resources, we have also been able to enhance and develop our services regionwide to improve the quality of care through the redesign of services."
These included mental health, older people services, obstetric services and renal services.
"Hawke's Bay is not unique in having challenges, particularly in recent months when this hospital and many other DHBs up and down the country have been under pressure.
"However, we are always looking at ways to improve our health system.
"We are currently reviewing our services provided to locals and will be producing a Clinical Services Plan later this year for consultation with the community which will indicate how we believe we can improve clinical services within this health system. I encourage everyone to get involved and have their say."
