More than 30 people, including all 20 rural GPs from Southland, met in Lumsden on Tuesday night to discuss a proposal by Brian Rousseau, the chief executive of both the Southland and Otago district health boards, to replace nine PHO's in the two provinces with one.
Mr Rousseau attended the Lumsden meeting along with Mr Menzies, deputy chairwoman of both boards Susie Johnstone, board member Katie O'Connor, and Stuart McLauchlan (Crown monitor), of Dunedin.
The meeting, arranged by New Zealand Rural General Practice Network board chairwoman Kirsty Murrell-McMillan and chief executive Michelle Meads, was yesterday described in a statement as "constructive".
"However, rural practitioners clearly expressed their view that they did not support a single southern PHO," according the statement issued by Mrs Murrell-McMillan and Mr Menzies.
There were two resolutions passed at the meeting: that rural GPs would not take part in, or engage in, the development of a provincial Southland-based PHO; and that rural GPs were happy to be engaged in a process to develop a PHO "that has a strong rural and clinical voice".
Mr Menzies told the Otago Daily Times yesterday he would take the resolutions back to the board "as soon as possible".
The next SDHB meeting was scheduled for November 12, but he was "not comfortable" in leaving it that long.
"We may call a special meeting to discuss it. I don't want to have any great further delays here because the process has been quite painful already."
Mr Menzies said he was "hopeful" an agreement could be reached which would please most people.
However, "someone won't be happy, for sure", he said.
"I'm only one member of the board - but you've got to get a resolution."
Mrs Murrell-McMillan said it was inevitable there would be those who were not be happy, regardless of the SDHB's decision "but overall, I'm satisfied we were heard".
