Legal expenses from court cases have cost the Southern District Health Board more than $130,000 in the past two years.
The SDHB had been, or was still involved in, 10 coronial inquests, a Family Court matter and three criminal cases, figures released under the Official Information Act said.
The cases include the inquest into the death of Ross Taylor, a hearing finally held last month more than three years after the Health and Disability Commissioner released a report which criticised the care he received from the SDHB.
Nil costs were recorded for that case, but all others combined totalled $133,112.
The SDHB is also still involved in an inquest to due to resume in February, which has cost it $7433 so far, and further inquest which had not been scheduled and for which it had already spent more than $17,000 in legal costs.
The Family Court matter, details of which are suppressed, cost the SDHB $29,120.
Of the criminal matters, one had been resolved following a guilty plea by the defendant, and the board was awaiting two court decisions as to whether SDHB files must be disclosed, and to what extent. Those cases had cost the SDHB a combined $7164.
The SDHB has also revealed the number of workplace health and safety incidents in the past two years. For the 23 months to November 2020, 1894 incidents and 152 near miss reports had been registered by the SDHB.
The greatest number of incidents were assaults, which totalled 315.
While the board response under the OIA did not break down incidents to describe how they occurred and how they were resolved, previous board documents have expressed concerns about assaults on staff by patients in both the emergency department and in mental health facilities.
Exposure to body fluids (256), muscular stress or strain (192), psychological harm (148) and a slip, trip or fall (133) were the other major contributors to the incident tally.
"Two notifiable events were notified to the regulator," SDHB chief executive Chris Fleming said.
"One was a hazardous substances spill and one was a non-medical injury suffered by a patient.
"Both incidents were internally investigated."
