Eileen Goodwin

The housework cuts being imposed by the Southern District Health Board have spurred a Dunedin elder activities group to extend its services.

St Kilda pensioner John Currie said he was so worried about his housework help being cut to 30 minutes a week, he ended up in hospital.

Sophie Barker wants to make sure no-one has the same neurosurgery experience as her.

The phrase desperate and dateless had a new twist on Saturday when Dunedin City Council candidates narrowly outnumbered "speed dating"-style voters at an event devised to put voters face-to-face with those who seek to represent them.

Receiving 92 replies to the Warrington boy racer survey was an impressively large response, Waikouaiti Coast Community Board chairman Alasdair Morrison says.

Health Minister Tony Ryall acknowledged yesterday in Parliament he is accountable for the neurosurgery decision.

A national review of a procedure performed only at Dunedin Hospital is "presumably coincidental" with the neurosurgery decision process, radiation oncologist Dr Shaun Costello says.

A suggestion in a medical magazine that cardiac services at Dunedin are under threat appears to be speculation, says Southern District Health Board (SDHB) chief executive Brian Rousseau.

The Cancer Society fears the effect on cancer sufferers if Dunedin loses neurosurgery.

The Government would be "politically unwise" not to heed the voices of the thousands of protesters who turned out in Dunedin fighting to keep neurosurgery in the city, southern clinical health leader Richard Bunton says.