The Southern District Health Board will not meet national targets for providing first specialist assessments or timely surgery in its latest set of reports to the Ministry of Health, hospital advisory papers show.
In her report to tomorrow's meeting, in Queenstown, patient services executive director Lexie O'Shea said the board would not comply with two key measures for February.
The board has 61 patients waiting more than six months for the first specialist appointment, up from 23 the previous month.
In addition, 63 patients were waiting more than six months for surgery after being given a commitment, up from 25 the previous month.
The board had performed 8% less elective surgery, and 6% less acute surgery, than had been planned in February. The board is following through on a previous undertaking to reduce the number of patients sitting on acting review, that number dropping by 100 to 498 patients within one month. Active review means patients are not quite bad enough for surgery, but are monitored for deterioration. In her report, Mrs O'Shea said elective surgery problems were largely driven by staff leave, and to a lesser extent vacancies, such as the long-standing urologist vacancy in Dunedin.
Mercy Hospital chief executive Richard Whitney said yesterday the board had not outsourced any elective surgery to it this financial year.
''The DHB is fighting its own fight, really ... They obviously think they can deal with it.''
With just one permanent urologist, Dunedin was poorly served in this area, he said.
