Elspeth McLean

Southern District Health Board chief executive Brian Rousseau will leave his position early to take up a post in Adelaide, where he will oversee a $1.9 billion rebuild of Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Nobody should be in any doubt change is needed at Dunedin Hospital, but it will take a "brave board" to ensure it happens, New Zealand Nurses Organisation organiser Lorraine Lobb says.

The $150 million price-tag for a complete upgrade of Dunedin hospitals is too much for the cash-strapped Southern District Health Board.

Possible changes within Dunedin Hospital services should help the development of shared services for the Otago-Southland region, Southern District Health Board chief executive Brian Rousseau says.

Demand for the Southern District Health Board's medical and surgical services for the next three years is being assessed to ensure it fits expected funding, which could leave virtually no money for growth.

When Sister Barbara Ferguson watched the opening ceremony for the 23-bed Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Royal Tce, Dunedin, in February 1936, as a 10-year-old, she never dreamed 75 years later she would be commemorating its opening as a former staff member.

Dunedin and Wakari Hospital staff have been given until the beginning of August to give their views on the proposals put forward this month in a blunt report about hospital services

The Southern District Health Board is having difficulty finding enough doctors to staff Lakes District Hospital amid uncertainty about the hospital's future.

A call for every town in New Zealand to raise money to give low-income families in Christchurch a break from the shaking was made by Dame Margaret Bazley in Dunedin yesterday.