Sixty-five Southland women requiring terminations since the February 22 earthquake have been sent to Dunedin rather than Christchurch for the procedure, Southern District Health Board Southland chief operating officer Lexie O'Shea confirmed.
By long-standing arrangement, Southland women had the procedure in Christchurch, partly because of a lack of certified consultants.
The extra work had put pressure on Dunedin Hospital.
"There have been additional pressures on all staff in Dunedin to cope with this increase in activity," Mrs O'Shea said.
More clinic and theatre time, and theatres reopening early after Easter, had helped deal with the situation.
Mrs O'Shea said a "scoping exercise" over the next few months was the first step to establishing the service in Southland.
"A key priority of Southern DHB is to establish southern clinical services with the principle of providing services to all patients as close to their homes as possible. "Over the past few months, there has been discussion about ways to improve the termination of pregnancy services for women in Southland," Mrs O'Shea said.
In the meantime, Dunedin Hospital continued to handle extra cases and there was no plan to resume sending women to Christchurch.
