Mike Houlahan

Michael Woodhouse and David Clark no longer have political responsibility for health, but that has not stopped them clashing about the new Dunedin Hospital.

Projects have been delayed or cancelled and services are managing bottlenecks of patients as the Southern District Health Board copes with the ongoing impact of Covid-19.

Politics is something that has largely happened elsewhere for the previous five weeks, something for which we should all probably be very grateful.

A pilot outreach project bringing the healing power of art to mentally unwell people in Waitaki is about to be launched.

Parking may be removed at certain times of the day from streets either side of the former Cadbury factory while it is demolished to make way for the new Dunedin hospital.

Most elective surgery has resumed at the Southern District Health Board’s main hospitals, but some restrictions remain for orthopaedic surgery.

There are few training courses where students are allowed to destroy their classroom.

Soil on the site of the future Dunedin Hospital is contaminated by a range of chemicals and heavy metals but poses a low risk to human health.

Southern health authorities are pleading with people to resume scanning Covid-19 QR codes as a matter of routine.

Dunedin Hospital has dramatically increased its number of ventilators and has plans in place to deploy them throughout the building should a Covid-19 resurgence happen in the South.

Pacific people call the National Poisons Centre in far fewer numbers than expected, new research has found.

Courts should become "guardians of the environment" and accept civil cases when defendants are sued for contributing to climate change, a group of University of Otago legal academics say.

A Southern District Health Board investigation into the death of an Invercargill man from Covid-19 is in its final stages, the Ministry of Health says.

Southern hospitals are continuing to restrict elective surgery as high numbers of patients put pressure on bed availability.

The Ministry of Health expects to announce further details of New Zealand’s new pre-flight Covid-19 testing regime next week, and it could be extended to other routes.

Dunedin retailers say local shoppers are showing signs of Covid-19 complacency, reflecting a drop in nationwide QR code scanning rates.

It is called Albert Town, but for a month or so each year the township near Wanaka might as well be renamed Richardsonville.

The Southern primary health organisation WellSouth says it is determined to turn around poor statistics for provision of help for people to quit smoking.

Legal expenses from court cases have cost the Southern District Health Board more than $130,000 in the past two years.

The Southern District Health Board spent a third less on locums in 2019-20 than in the previous financial year.