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Paul Menzies
Southland District Health Board chairman Paul Menzies
does not plan to meet nurses and some senior doctors over their
"eleventh hour" concerns about the possible merger of the Otago
and Southland boards.
The Southland board meets on Thursday to decide whether it
should join Otago in recommending to Health Minister Tony
Ryall that he establish one Southern DHB.
Mr Menzies said Thursday's decision would be a momentous one,
but part of the consultation process was the desire for the
boards to have a hand in shaping their own future.
Late last week, about 400 members of the New Zealand Nurses
Organisation at Southland Hospital followed the lead of 24
senior doctors by raising issues publicly about the merger
process.
Mr Menzies said yesterday he was not precluding the
possibility of meetings with the two groups before Thursday,
but none had been planned.
He had yet to receive the nurses' letter and was not sure if
their concerns were substantive.
NZNO convener at Southland Hospital, Anne McFarlane, said
nurses saw the retention of nursing leadership in Southland
and Dunedin as a pivotal part of any merger.
NZNO's submission in support of the merger had been
conditional on this, but the Southland nurses did not feel
the detail provided in the consultation process or subsequent
report considered this issue.
Mr Menzies noted that the regional chief nursing and
midwifery officer, Leanne Samuel, was from Southland.
The merger proposal was designed to ensure service levels
were retained rather than diminished.
No merger would be more of a risk than a merger, he said.
Twenty-four of about 90 Southland senior doctors last week
sent an open letter to Mr Menzies saying the consultation
process was too short and did not give enough information on
which to base a decision.
They wanted to see a full risk-benefit analysis, and were
concerned about possible Southland disenfranchisement under a
board in which Otago had four elected members and Southland
three.
Meanwhile, Queenstown Medical Centre has urged the Southland
board to vote for the merger.
Centre chief executive Dr Richard Macharg said concern about
the potential loss of autonomy in Invercargill had to be
carefully balanced against the likely health gain for Central
Otago and rural Southland patients.
Co-operative work arrangements had been impossible to
implement in the past seven years because of separate funding
systems for the two boards, he said.
elspeth.mclean@odt.co.nz
