It was good to see members at the South Island Neurosurgical Service's inaugural governance board meeting in Wellington yesterday had "clearly put the past behind them", National Health Board deputy director Michael Hundleby says.
In a statement released after the meeting, Mr Hundleby said the governance board members were already working together well.
Board members had emphasised the need to start the appointments process for a clinical director for the whole service and permanent neurosurgeons in Dunedin as quickly as possible.
This process would still take time, but all members had agreed on the process and advertising for at least one of the academic neurosurgical positions would start within the next month.
Under the planned service, Dunedin is to have three neurosurgeons, two of them with academic duties at the University of Otago.
At the moment, Dunedin is staffed by locums, but is expecting a permanent Swedish appointee to arrive in March.
An independent neurosurgeon is yet to be appointed permanently to the governance board, but Wellington neurosurgeon Martin Hunn attended yesterday's meeting.
The new board is chaired by Prof Andrew Kaye, a Melbourne neurosurgeon and academic, and also among the membership is the Canterbury District Health Board chairman Bruce Matheson, Southern DHB chairman, Joe Butterfield, South Canterbury DHB chairman Murray Cleverley (representing the other South Island DHBs), Prof Don Roberton (University of Otago) and David Russell (consumer adviser).
No iwi nominee has yet been named.
Canterbury and Southern DHB chief executives David Meates and Brian Rousseau also attended and are expected to do so in future, as they will be responsible for implementing the governance board's decisions.
The next meeting of the board will be in Christchurch in a month's time, with the following meeting to be held in Dunedin.
It is possible some meetings may also be held by video-conference.
The board is expected to make regular reports on its progress, which will be made available to the public.
