The Southern District Health Board was told in 2010 its multimillion-dollar dispute with South Link Health (SLH) might be fraud, but the dispute was not referred to police, board chairman Joe Butterfield has revealed.
Who knew what and when? Questions are being asked since it was revealed recently the Southern District Health Board has known about the possibility of a health funds fraud for more than three years. Health reporter Eileen Goodwin examines the issues.
Former Southern District Health Board chief executive Brian Rousseau has spoken out about the South Link Health (SLH) dispute, providing a list of people he says knew about legal advice the row could involve fraud.
Growing problems with the Southern District Health Board's ''ageing infrastructure'' and the negative effects of population-based funding were highlighted at a public meeting yesterday.
Health Minister Tony Ryall's relationship with the head of the organisation locked in dispute with the Southern District Health Board has been criticised by a health board member.
Stuart McLauchlan, the man charged with monitoring the Southern District Health Board, says he was not told of legal advice in 2010 that the South Link Health (SLH) funds dispute might involve fraud.
South Link Health (SLH) says it found out through reading the Otago Daily Times that the Southern District Health Board had called in a forensic accountant over what the Dunedin-based independent practitioner association believed until this week was a commercial dispute.
An audit of 767 people who may have had delayed or declined access to surveillance colonoscopy in Otago between 2007 and 2011 found eight had died of bowel cancer or its complications.
Some long-term Wakari Hospital mental health inpatients face an uncertain future in the community, which does not appear equipped to care for them if they are discharged in the coming months, Dunedin North MP David Clark says.
A proposal to reduce the number of mental health beds in ward 11 at Wakari Hospital is still ''under development'', the Southern District Health Board says.
A health professional is questioning the wisdom of the Southern District Health Board cutting bed numbers last year, as Southland Hospital and Dunedin Hospital near capacity.
Hospitals throughout Otago and Southland are almost at capacity and some patients are being shuffled around wards as staff deal with a seasonal increase in admissions.
The pay figures of University of Otago and Southern District Health Board staff published by this newspaper last weekend provide good news for the city, particularly given the recent focus on job losses, restructuring and the resulting uncertainty.