"A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down," so the song goes, but for some Dunedin cancer patients next year, three spoonfuls of honey a day will be part of the medicine.
If the Otago District Health Board had not been defrauded of $16.9 million, deficits would have been reduced rather than additional services provided, board chairman Richard Thomson says.
Plans and costings for major redevelopment of the Regent Theatre are expected to be presented to the Otago Theatre Trust by the end of the year, but work may not start before 2010.
More interaction between clinicians in rural hospitals and Dunedin Hospital is needed, medical director of the University of Otago's Te Waipounamu Rural Health Unit, Dr Pat Farry says.
Young Dunedin mother Leah Craigie is one of nine Otago people infected by a puzzling national outbreak of a rare type of salmonella.
"Germs and sperms don't know how old you are."
No knight on a white horse is galloping over the horizon with a bag of money to solve the Otago District Health Board's financial problems, chairman Richard Thomson says.
Collaboration between Otago and Southland diabetes and endocrinology services is about to increase, with two Otago consultants soon to begin monthly outpatient clinics at Invercargill Hospital.
Some women over 40 in Otago may find it difficult to find a male partner their age or older because women outnumber men by more than 3500, according to the 2006 census.
It may have been uncharitable, but, just for a moment, I wished Shrek the sheep had run amok in the Auckland Sky tower last week.
Outstanding applications for installing haemodialysis machines in people's homes in Otago should be processed immediately, following concerns about delays raised this week by Otago District Health Board representatives.
Regionalisation is probably the most important thing to ensure the maintenance of good and viable health services across Otago and Southland, Otago's chief medical officer, Richard Bunton, says.
Life may be quite lonely for the estimated 40 and 60 HIV positive people living in Otago, World Aids Day appeal volunteer Sarah Loftus says.
Repeating the recruitment event at the Speight's Southerner bar in London would go against the advice of the southern health boards' health promotion staff, public health advocate Richard Egan says.
Dunedin Hospital has become good at containing norovirus but more work needs to be done to improve infection control in the community, chief nursing officer Teresa Bradfield says.
The recent controversial health board recruitment promotion at the Speight's Southerner bar in London is expected to result in at least two expatriate health professionals returning home to work.
Rural hospitals concerned that the outcome of the Otago-Southland review of hospital services will clash with the renegotiation of their contracts should adopt a "business as usual" approach, David Chrisp says.
Brochures promoting disability awareness are likely to end up in the waste paper basket if given to district health board staff as part of orientation, Dot Wilson says.
Some vaccinations against the human papillomavirus (HPV) will be delivered at Otago schools next year.
Much of the hand washing we do is possibly "worse than useless" and education about the subject is not necessarily helpful because it tries to make the message too simple.
