In late March, all district health boards, apart from Canterbury, were given an "indicative share" of 4000 procedures which the national board said might be required to cover all the surgery which would have been done in Christchurch to the end of June.
The Canterbury board indicated the shortfall was likely to be fewer than 1000 cases.
Asked to explain that discrepancy, the national board said a range of factors, many unknown, such as the effect of the Christchurch winter, would determine what Canterbury could achieve.
North Island boards were asked to concentrate on providing extra surgery to their own populations, giving priority to those who had waited more than six months.
Southern District Health Board's suggested share was 400 procedures, but it has only offered to take on 150 extras at Southland Hospital.
Chief operating officer (Southland) Lexie O'Shea said patients who had been given certainty of treatment but had been waiting the longest for their procedures would be given priority.
The delays for those patients had been largely due to more urgent cases taking precedence.
Chief operating officer (Otago) Vivian Blake advised the national board Dunedin Hospital had no capacity for any extras.
She said this week she had received no further correspondence on the issue.
Questions posed by the Otago Daily Times to the Health Minister Tony Ryall a fortnight ago were referred to the National Health Board.
The questions followed an email response from the National Health Board to earlier questions.
On receipt of the questions referred by the minister's office, the decision was made within the national board that rather than answer any of the questions straight away, all the inquiries would go through the board's Official Information Act process, which could legally take up to 20 working days.
The Otago Daily Times was advised this week there had been an attempt to push through this process faster than usual, but because of the Easter holiday, the information was unlikely to be available before next week.
Advised that the newspaper would be writing about the issue before then, the board asked that it be made clear the response would still be received "well within" 20 working days and much of the information was not determined at the time it was sought.
The questions posed included the numbers of procedures individual boards were asked to do and the number they said they were able to do, the anticipated cost, where the money was coming from and whether it meant something else was not being funded.
The board and Mr Ryall were also asked whether some sort of priority assessment criteria was applied to the extra spending against other possible health expenditure and whether 4000 procedures in three months was a realistic expectation.
Mr Ryall was also asked if the pressure on North Island boards to carry out extra surgery not related to the earthquake was connected to the concerns about waiting times raised in the draft Auditor-general's report.
That report is expected to be finalised in May.
