The Southern District Health Board has been alone in raising issues nationally about population-based health funding in the past two years, Health Minister Tony Ryall suggests.
In response to an Otago Daily Times request under the Official Information Act, Mr Ryall said he was advised by the Ministry of Health there had been no other complaints regarding population-based funding from January 2009 to mid-September this year.
"No-one has raised any complaints or issues, other than from Southern DHB."
The ODT had also asked whether any ministry officials or the National Health Board had raised issues with the formula with the health minister, but Mr Ryall said no aspects of the formula had been questioned.
The Southern board, under chief executive Brian Rousseau, who left in September, had raised concerns about aspects of the formula, including the way funding for services to a rural population was allocated.
Mr Rousseau was also critical of the way funding had been allocated for extra elective surgery.
He wanted this based on each population's share of surgery because he considered Southern, which was achieving surgery rates above the national average when the funding was introduced, was disadvantaged by millions of dollars annually.
However, under his proposal to redistribute the funding on a population basis, Southern and 12 other boards would gain funding, but the three Auckland district health boards would be the biggest losers, missing out on $32 million this financial year.
Another southern critic of the population based funding formula has been University of Otago health policy researcher Associate Prof Robin Gauld, who has described it as a mystery and has referred to Ministry of Health tactics to keep key data close to its chest.
