Dunedin Hospital

The Southern District Health Board is one of 14 boards which did not meet the national target for shorter stays in its emergency departments in the first quarter of this financial year.

Unnecessary examinations of patients are are one of the practices the project tackling waiting times at Dunedin Hospital's emergency department is trying to stop.

Dunedin Hospital's urology service has had to introduce catch-up clinics to cope with more than 350 patients waiting for their first appointment with a specialist.

Another substantial hospital building is needed in Dunedin because tinkering with the existing buildings will increasingly thwart staff's ability to deliver a good service, a leading specialist says.

Dunedin Hospital women's health service has stopped accepting non-urgent gynaecology referrals because of a staff vacancy.

Dunedin Hospital was down to a lone neurosurgeon "for a period of time" earlier this year, but support from locums and neurosurgeons elsewhere in the country enabled it to cope, Southern District Health Board's hospitals' advisory committee was told yesterday.

A Dunedin Hospital staff member has been diagnosed with measles, increasing the risk of an Otago outbreak, Southern District Health Board medical officer of health Dr Derek Bell said.

Staying times at Dunedin Hospital's emergency department have improved, a newsletter to general practitioners says.

Young people staying in isolation at the Dunedin Hospital will find their stay a bit less tedious following the donation of a host of new electronic entertainments.

A Dunedin Hospital paediatrician says parents and grandparents around babies should be vaccinated against whooping cough.