Canterbury clinicians are providing cover to keep the Southern District Health Board's radiation oncology service running during a looming staff shortage.
Several SDHB staff were due to go on sabbatical in the next few months, which could have put pressure on waiting lists, specialist services executive director Patrick Ng told an SDHB commissioners meeting yesterday.
"Canterbury are providing us with cover, but we will have to manage that very carefully," Mr Ng said.
"It is an additional cost, but it is less of a cost than if we were to bring in a locum."
Sabbaticals were taken at agreed times between the service and clinicians, and usually organised in advance.
However, clinicians had recently been working long hours so it was appropriate that leave requests be granted where possible, Mr Ng said.
The SDHB recently had a blowout in its waiting list for radiation oncology treatment, which meant more than 150 people waited longer than they should for potentially life-saving treatment.
Mr Ng said its waiting list was now within normal limits.
Canterbury was also helping with the commissioning of the first of the service's two new Elektra linear accelerator machines, Mr Ng said.
Ongoing issues have meant the first machine is still only operating at 70% capacity, but the Canterbury DHB chief physicist had been visiting Dunedin during weekends to help.
