District health boards' autonomy is quietly reducing and could reach the point where board members are little more than "mini monitors of performance", retiring Southern District Health Board chairman Errol Millar says.
Departing Southern District Health Board chairman Errol Millar says he is concerned the debate over the future of Wakatipu health services is taking place in the media instead of the various interested parties "getting into a room together and working out a common sense solution".
As speculation swirls around who might lead the next Southern District Health Board, former South Canterbury District Health Board chairman Joe Butterfield would not comment last night on whether he was in the running.
Health Minister Tony Ryall will not reappoint Errol Millar as chairman of the next Southern District Health Board.
The draft report on neurosurgery services sent to district health boards for checking did not contain the South Island Neurosurgical Service expert panel's recommendations.
The Southern District Health Board and its two predecessors paved the way for how health governance in New Zealand might look, but much is still to be achieved, outgoing board member Peter Barron says.
Preliminary planning for a short-stay unit at Dunedin Hospital's emergency department has begun, but staff are waiting for the results of computer modelling before it goes further.
The biggest district health board in the country has its final meeting today in Invercargill, but it appears up to five of the 20 members will be absent.
When I answered the door on All Saints' eve, I tried to look welcoming.
The much-awaited top-secret South Island neurosurgical service expert panel's draft report only reached the South Island district health boards after the close of business yesterday.
Southern District Health Board election statistics issued by the Ministry of Health this week have been revised following the discovery that more than 6000 Southland informal and blank votes were not included.
An Otago University employment law specialist has criticised the Government's suggestion law changes could be made to suit the producers of The Hobbit movies.
A call for cohesion rather than confusion over performance improvement within the Southern District Health Board was made at the board's hospitals' advisory committee meeting this week.
The biggest challenge in developing clinical services across Otago and Southland is getting the "non-clinical stuff" right, Southern District Health Board chief medical officer (Otago) Richard Bunton says.
South Island district health boards will receive copies of the neurosurgery panel's draft report tomorrow for fact checking.
Southern babies who need extra hearing testing after initial screening are being seen by an audiologist from the Northland District Health Board, but tenders are being called for this service.
The turnout by Otago voters in the recent Southern District Health Board elections was the fourth highest in the country, but the Southland percentage was below the national average.
Outside funding of $40,000 is needed to support an ongoing Southern District Health Board programme designed to attract Southland secondary school pupils to health careers.
Surgery of a different kind has been necessary at Dunedin Hospital recently as maintenance staff had to deal with a blocked Lamson tube.
An impending staffing crisis in the Southern Blood and Cancer haematology service has abated "for now", the Southern District Health Board's hospitals' advisory committee will be told this week.
