This is revealed in a letter Southern chief executive Brian Rousseau wrote to South Island district health board chief executives last month.
A memo from the boards' spokesman on the neurosurgery issue Chris Fleming (South Canterbury) shows Canterbury was not keen to take on such a lead board role.
In his memo to board chief executives, Mr Fleming said Canterbury chief executive David Meates considered "every time there were any problems, Otago may raise the flag to point to suggestions that Canterbury were trying to undermine the model".
Mr Rousseau's letter said this required further discussion and stated Southern would be prepared to be the lead board for the service, based on a collaborative regional clinical network with four Christchurch neurosurgeons and two in Dunedin, working within an agreed governing body involving clinical and community representation.
Letters released yesterday show that a month ago Mr Rousseau advised Director-general of Health Stephen McKernan he had two neurosurgeons on stand-by to come to Dunedin and must act immediately to appoint them or risk losing them.
In a May 21 letter, he asked that if it was Mr McKernan's intention to direct the board to adopt the Christchurch-only neurosurgery option that he be informed immediately.
This week, Mr McKernan, who was asked to urgently intervene in the row over the service on May 27, advised he would be convening an expert panel to advise him.
In his statement, he said he had requested no permanent appointments be made to the service pending decisions on future configuration.
At this stage, it is not known how long the panel's deliberations might take.
The Otago Daily Times could not establish last night how far Mr Rousseau had got with the employment process for the two neurosurgeons.
Mr Rousseau was unable to comment, referring all queries to Mr Fleming, who said he had been advised that Southern was looking into the situation.
The Canterbury and Southern boards cannot agree on how a regional service should be delivered.
Southern is not satisfied that having neurosurgery performed only at Christchurch would be clinically safe, due to the transport times and the emergency arrangements.
Canterbury has suggested that general surgeons could be trained to perform emergency procedures.
Mr Rousseau's correspondence, both to Mr McKernan and to other South Island board chief executives, shows that his surgeons and neurologists are "vigorously opposed " to the emergency arrangements proposed.
The letters show Mr Rousseau's frustration at the time it has taken to sort out the issue, saying that the process to a regional service began informally in November 2007 and the Dunedin service had been "in limbo ever since".
It has been without a resident neurosurgeon since the beginning of last year.
Mr Rousseau also points out that only the model which would have all neurosurgeons in Christchurch has been explored.
"I have stated clearly, on numerous occasions, why I believe that model is unacceptable, and yet my proposed model has received little or no rigorous analysis."
He told Mr McKernan the importance of teaching at Dunedin Hospital and the Government's strategy to increase medical school numbers at the University of Otago was not adequately understood or considered.
