Triage Locums director Cherie Pagan said the Central Otago-based medical recruitment firm was owed more than $50,000 by Heartland Health Ltd, which went into liquidation on May 6.
In a written statement Ms Pagan said she believed the liquidation, which her company initiated, showed a ''lack of business acumen'' on the part of Kaylene Holland.
Ms Holland is primary health services manager for the PHO, a role that involves developing and managing primary health services in Otago and Southland.
She was sole director and shareholder of Heartland Health. The medical practice Reed St Surgery, operated by the company, closed earlier this month.
Ms Pagan believed Ms Holland should stand down while a perceived conflict of interest was ''investigated''. Primary health organisations distributed funds, oversaw health targets, and set standards, so questions of reputation and integrity were important, she said.
Ms Holland told the Otago Daily Times ''there may have been'' a perception in Oamaru she had a conflict of interest, but this was managed by avoiding direct contact with the town's GP practices.
She rejected the claim of a lack of business acumen, pointing out she had no role in the day-to-day management of Reed St Surgery.
''If there was a perceived conflict, it's not there now. So I'm not quite sure what the issue is really.
''This is making it quite personal ... I'm quite sure there'll be another story at the other end of it, but at the moment I can't comment or discuss that.''
The liquidation process needed to run its course, she said.
Ms Holland took the senior management role in October last year. Previously, she was a contractor for the PHO, working in GP practice support, focused mainly on Southland, in which the conflict of interest question was not an issue, she said.
Southern PHO chief executive Ian Macara said he could not comment on Ms Pagan's concerns, because of the liquidation process but he stood by comments he made last week, when he said he was ''very confident'' any conflict was well managed.
Ms Holland was not involved in decision-making over practices in the Oamaru area: ''Absolutely [she] had to be excluded from all those decision-making processes, that's correct.''
''My board and me are very comfortable that all the potential conflicts were managed appropriately,'' he said.
Perceived conflicts of interests were common in health, and he had received no formal complaints about Ms Holland's role.
The PHO's main concern regarding the Oamaru liquidation was service continuity for the patients.
