Space will be a challenge for the gastrointestinal diseases centre being set up by the Southern District Health Board and the University of Otago at Dunedin Hospital.
Chairman of the new venture's establishment board Emeritus Prof Gil Barbezat said the board had been given more time to come up with a plan for the centre.
The "beyond difficult" original August 6 deadline for a draft plan had been set aside.
The board was developing a planned process for a model of care for the clinical, research and teaching requirements for the centre.
It would then negotiate how these could best be integrated in a "unit of excellence".
The floor space available on the eighth floor was not big enough to accommodate all the requirements of the centre so members would "have to think hard how and where we can adapt without compromising the efficacy of the project", he said.
The centre is to extend into the area occupied by the university's bioethics department, which is expected to move to the former Bowling Green Hotel at the end of the year.
It is anticipated that the new centre will provide a second endoscopy room.
Space for under-graduates and post graduates, teaching and research would also be needed.
The centre, the only one of its type in the country, aims to be a centre of excellence for gastrointestinal diseases, providing high-quality clinical services, as well as supporting excellence in research and training.
The establishment board is to provide direction on changes required for an Otago-Southland service, prescribe the facilities needed, define how the centre will be managed and the relationship between the DHB and the university, develop policy, goals and strategies for the centre and its governance, and manage transition to the new board.
Gastrointestinal Diseases Centre
Establishment board:
• Prof Gil Barbezat, chairman
• Prof John McCall, surgeon
• Dr Martin Schlup , clinical leader gastroenterology (Otago)
• Dr Michael Schultz, gastroenterologist
• Vivian Blake, Southern DHB chief operating officer (Otago)
• Mark Thompson-Fawcett, surgeon
• Julian Speight, Invercargill surgeon
• Leanne Samuel, chief nursing and midwifery officer
• Ex-officio members will be the head of the University of Otago, Dunedin School of Medicine surgical sciences department, and the head of medicine department.
