Talk of nursing shortages at Dunedin Hospital sound all too familiar to Lois Fletcher (67) who has just retired from 50 years of nursing, most of it on night or evening shifts.
The Awatea St Stadium may wake the nation up to the fact local government is too powerful, Dr Rob Hamlin, of the business school at the University of Otago says.
Bed numbers at the Otago Community Hospice are likely to be reduced as the organisation faces a $300,000 deficit.
Otago District Health Board services have ended the year with a deficit of at least $3.5 million, mainly due to increased spending on wages.
What's in a name? Well, quite a lot, actually, reckons Elspeth "Crumpet" McLean, who's been called a few in her time.
As many as 41 deaths from breast cancer in 45-69-year-olds could be saved yearly by the breast screening programme in New Zealand, but to achieve this, participation will need to increase, Associate Prof Brian Cox says.
Questions about the proposed national colorectal cancer screening programme - and fears Dunedin Hospital will not cope with the resulting extra work - have been raised by senior doctors.
Concern that a necessary service such as palliative care has to be half-funded by the community has been expressed by Public Service Association health organiser Julie Morton.
Former Dunedin man Dr Stanley Paris (70) has yet to decide if he will make a second attempt to become the oldest English Channel swimmer, after his first attempt failed at the weekend.
When her 2-year-old son Max looks at her wedding photos, he only says "Daddy" because he cannot recognise her, one of Dunedin's four 2008 national Weight Watchers award winners, Lee Adam, says.
Women with postnatal depression in Dunedin are missing out on support because a $140,000 service which should have gone ahead last September has not received Otago District Health Board funding, Plunket says.
Union representatives collected about 200 signatures in an hour yesterday in Dunedin for a petition asking the Government to make safe staffing mandatory in the aged-care sector.
Confusion over information provided to parents about the level of protection offered by the MenzB vaccine against meningococcal disease does not help the credibility of the medical profession, Balclutha general practitioner Dr Branko Sijnja says.
The proposal for Otago and Southland community pharmacies' dispensing fees to be bulk-funded is not practical and likely to pit pharmacists and family doctors against one another, Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand chief executive Annabel Young says.
With less than a week to go before he plunges into the pre-dawn water off Dover in a bid to become the oldest man to swim the English Channel, Dr Stanley Paris (70), formerly of Dunedin, is spending most of his time on land.
A potentially controversial proposal which would involve bulk-funding of pharmacies as part of a plan to reduce the burgeoning drugs bill in Otago and Southland will be considered by an advisory committee of the two district health boards tomorrow.
We all realise trivia is a serious issue, for presidents and other personalities, writes Elspeth McLean.
A body similar to the Higher Salaries Commission could be established to set salaries for health professionals, University of Otago Bioethics Centre director Prof Donald Evans says.
The Otago District Health Board will pay $35,000 towards the installation of traffic lights at the intersection of Helensburgh and Taieri Rds, near Wakari Hospital.
A 67-year-old woman Dunedin woman who died in September 2006 - before she could receive a scan classed as semi-urgent - should still be alive, her daughter in Christchurch, Mary Corbishley, says.