Dunedin Hospital

Dunedin Hospital patients are now waiting up to 40 weeks for a routine MRI scan, with efforts to reduce wait times mostly yet to bear fruit.

The high number of patients waiting for urgent orthopaedic surgery at Dunedin Hospital are being managed by cancelling non-urgent surgery, surgical medical director Murray Fosbender says.

A group of Vietnamese orthopaedic surgeons from the city of Quy Nhon have been in Dunedin this week, observing hip and knee surgery.

Dunedin Hospital's emergency department has a clinical leader, Dr Caroline Collins, nearly a year after her predecessor stepped down over staff numbers.

A woman diagnosed with bowel cancer at Dunedin Hospital prompted a recall of patients for surveillance colonoscopies, Southern District Health Board gastroenterology clinical leader Dr Jason Hill said yesterday.

Despite long waiting times for routine MRI and CT scans, Dunedin Hospital's scanners run for an hour less each day than in Invercargill.

A Dunedin woman waiting for an MRI scan deemed routine by Dunedin Hospital believes some patients are classified as low priority to make the waiting list look better.

An ''intimidatory'' threat of disciplinary action against a Dunedin Hospital doctor has been dropped after months of negotiations with the Southern District Health Board, his union says.

American neurosurgeon Deepa Soni has returned to Dunedin Hospital as a locum while one of the permanent neurosurgeons gains vocational registration in Christchurch.

The public needs to know when ''huge'' waiting times for routine scans at Dunedin Hospital will be fixed, Southern District Health Board member Richard Thomson told the hospital advisory committee this week.