A report to the hospital advisory committee described shambolic electronic record-keeping and "ad hoc" business record-keeping and said the problems could cost more than $1 million to fix.
However, the board has a growing list of obsolete and near broken-down equipment, and capital spending has reached a point it can no longer be put off, chief executive Brian Rousseau has said previously.
Committee chairman Richard Thomson said at yesterday's meeting the board was looking at "huge sums of money" to comply with the Public Records Act.
It needed to look at its failure to comply with this Act compared to its failure to comply in other areas, such as the neonatal intensive care unit.
Mr Thomson wanted senior managers to seek a legal opinion about complying with the Act, but committee member Susie Johnstone disagreed.
"I suggest any lawyer would be obliged to say 'we have to comply'," she said.
Chief medical officer Richard Bunton agreed: "We are bedevilled with legal opinion and it is only an opinion. It shouldn't drive this."
The committee agreed to forego legal opinion for now.
