Southland chairman Paul Menzies said yesterday while the discussion of the issue would be in public, he expected the decision to be made in private to allow both boards to make a joint announcement about the outcome of their deliberations.
The Otago board made a decision in private last Thursday, but members were asked to keep it secret until after today's meeting to avoid the risk of unduly influencing the Southland board.
The Southland board agenda shows it intends to use the same grounds to go into closed session as the Otago board did.
The boards did not vote on the matter when they considered it in a joint meeting earlier this year and were to have met together again, but a suitable date could not be found.
Last week, the Otago board made its decision, which chairman Errol Millar described as a clear one.
The two members who serve on both boards, Susie Johnstone and Tahu Potiki, were not present at that meeting.
Chief executive Brian Rousseau has again recommended a single PHO replace the existing nine in the Otago-Southland region.
The earlier version of this was clearly not favoured by Southland members at the joint meeting, who indicated they would prefer one Southland PHO and another for Otago.
Since that meeting, the existing four Southland PHOs have proposed joining to become one PHO.
Mr Rousseau has pointed out that a South Link Health survey of about 80% of Southland general practices, covering 85,000 patients, strongly favoured one PHO for both provinces.
Mr Menzies yesterday said there had been much lobbying on the issue - "The emails have been flying thick and fast" - and whatever was agreed, someone would be unhappy.
Both chairmen said they hoped the boards' decisions were the same.
Mr Millar said what might happen if the decisions were different would depend on how different they were and whether a "quick huddle to iron out the kinks" would be able to settle any issues.
