In the Otago Daily Times last week, Mr Menzies was quoted as saying that if he was a local resident, he would not want his children to be born at Tuatapere Maternity because of a lack of clinical safety and its distance to other centres.
The DHB wants the maternity centre to cease operating as a birthing facility at the end of this month, but retain limited antenatal and postnatal services.
The Waiau Health Trust and the DHB are at odds over whether the trust opted to exit the contract, or was advised to.
The public in Tuatapere have rallied to save the centre, an effort that has included one of the largest protests seen in the western Southland town, a march held last Wednesday.
Clinical safety had never been an issue at the facility, Save Tuatapere Maternity Action Group chairwoman Lorelee Clarke said.
"The unit is subject to the same audit criteria as every other primary birthing facility and has passed all of these audits with the highest marks. For Mr Menzies to state otherwise is shocking."
To suggest the unit was unsafe because of its distance to other centres raised questions about the safety of all rural units, which were inevitably distant from secondary and tertiary health services, she said.
Tuatapere resident Suzanne Norman said she had had both her children at the centre, and never felt unsafe. The nursing and midwifery staff went beyond the call of duty, she said.
"What is not safe is having mothers in labour giving birth to babies on the side of the road because they didn't make it to another facility ..."
Waiau Health Trust chairman Justin Lewis, in an email, also pointed out the facility met the DHB's audit specifications.
"We are well attended by professional registered midwives, who are extremely well trained and experienced healthcare professionals. Our nursing and support staff are experts in their fields, and many have been supporting our birthing mothers for a great many years with outstanding outcomes."
Online, the story provoked comments on the ODT's website critical of Mr Menzies, who also said he was disappointed by the trust's stance.
When contacted, Mr Menzies said he had been misrepresented in the ODT, and he expressed support for the community rallying behind the cause.
He had experience of community maternity provision and sympathised with what the community was trying to do. It would be good if the trust developed a new "model of care" for the centre, and he stood by his comments that the present arrangement was not clinically safe or financially sustainable.
He would take "some convincing" before agreeing to his children being born there under the current arrangement.
