Elspeth McLean

Concerns that letters to the elderly about possible changes to their housework help provided inadequate contact details to appeal are literally being addressed by the Otago District Health Board.

The Otago District Health Board is likely to seek the approval of the Minister of Health to sell a surplus block of land at Wakari Hospital.

Individual health practitioners should "toughen up" over being publicly named when their practice fell below acceptable standards, journalist Donna Chisholm says.

Any ACC restrictions to the cover of treatment injuries could result in more people seeking personal accountability from health professionals when things go wrong, Auckland University associate professor of law Jo Manning says.

Seeking donations of everyday items for use in the Little Sisters of the Poor aged-care facility in Brockville has been a "win-win" situation for all involved , Mother Superior Sr Rose Margaret says.

Bars are increasingly becoming community centres which have to deal with the aftermath of supermarket alcohol sales, Gardens Tavern owner Peter Innes-Jones says.

The man in my life would have been impressed by my caller. He is usually unsympathetic to those silly enough to ask me a question.

Reaction by general practitioners to the outcome of the recent audit report of 33 referrals to Dunedin Hospital colonoscopy service has been positive, South Link Health executive director Prof Murray Tilyard said.

A national trial to test electronic prescribing, expected to start at Dunedin Hospital in July, could be held up if approval is not given for electronic "signatures".

Most of the 1531 people in Otago and Southland who received the single-strain swine-flu vaccine were healthcare workers.