Southern District Health Board seems unlikely to comply with a National Health Board call to carry out an extra 400 elective procedures before the end of June.
Chief operating officer (Otago) Vivian Blake said yesterday she had advised that Dunedin Hospital did not have the capacity for any extras.
It is understood Southland may be able to carry out some, but details on that were not available yesterday.
There appears to be considerable confusion around the instruction issued recently by board deputy national director Michael Hundleby.
All boards outside Canterbury have been asked to provide services for Canterbury people, but if that is not possible, to provide extra surgery for their own patients.
Labour health spokesman Grant Robertson has criticised the move, saying Health Minister Tony Ryall's obsession with meeting targets meant some Canterbury patients who should be getting surgery would perhaps not get it.
The letter suggests up to 4000 extra procedures might be required to cover all the surgery which would have been done in Canterbury to the end of June, but The New Zealand Herald quoted Canterbury DHB chief executive David Meates saying the shortfall was likely to be 740 cases.
Asked to clarify these numbers, Mr Hundleby, in an email statement, said a range of factors, many unknown, such as the impact of the Christchurch winter, would determine what the Canterbury board could achieve.
"Therefore, there will be a range of estimates as to what the final shortfall will be depending on the scenarios used."
Southern has been told its "indicative share" of the procedures is 400.
North Island boards have been asked to concentrate on providing extra surgery to their populations, giving priority to those who have waited more than six months.
If boards were already ahead of their planned surgery targets at the end of March, those extra procedures cannot be counted as part of the number they are now asked to complete.
Mr Hundleby said boards would be paid for the extra surgery they provided from April 1.
Procedures for Canterbury patients will be paid for by the Canterbury board, through the usual inter-district flow payment system.
However, the origin of funding for extra procedures boards might carry out on patients within their own areas is not clear.
"Funding for the additional procedures may come from a variety of sources, which will be determined once the capacity has been identified," Mr Hundleby said.
He did not wish to comment further.
Mrs Blake described the situation as "hard to manage".
Dunedin Hospital was already under pressure, having had a busy March with a high number of acute cases and extra work following the earthquake.
Meeting its existing elective target was already "pretty touch and go" although she believed the hospital would make it, barring any unforeseen circumstance, such as industrial action.
The hospital had already carried out a variety of procedures to help out Canterbury, but she did not have numbers available.
The board had also undertaken work normally done at Canterbury involving South Canterbury and West Coast patients.
Mr Hundleby said the NHB would be looking at the boards' responses to its request and would come up with a national plan to make up for Canterbury's shortfall and " to ensure we meet national targets".
