The Southern District Health Board will be one of the first boards where a new national bowel-screening programme is introduced, but a senior doctor has warned the programme needs to be adequately resourced.
Gastroenterology clinical leader Jason Hill said a provisional start date of between January and June 2018 put Southern "pretty much at the front of the pack''.
The scheme would start in the Canterbury DHB at the same time.
Dr Hill, an advocate of the screening programme, has spoken frankly to the Otago Daily Times about the need to sort out the staff availability issue or something will have to "give''.
He agrees with Treasury's warning that the required workforce is not in place, concerns that are dismissed by Health Minister Jonathan Coleman.
At the SDHB, the programme is expected to trigger an extra 750 colonoscopies, and result in at least one diagnosis of bowel cancer every week.
The first boards to start are Hutt Valley and Wairarapa next year.
Waitemata hosted the pilot, which will officially run until the end of next year, at which time it will switch to the programme.
By the end of 2019, it should be running in all 20 health boards.
People aged 60 to 74 will be eligible.
Screening involves an immunochemical faecal occult blood test to check for traces of blood in bowel motions.
Over a certain level, the result would trigger a colonoscopy.
Bowel Cancer New Zealand spokeswoman Sarah Derrett, an associate professor at the Dunedin School of Medicine, criticised the Government in May when the programme was announced because it did not say when screening would start in worst-affected areas, including Southern.
Contacted last week, she was delighted to learn the region had a provisional start date.
"This is very good news for this region, which is affected by one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the country. This will make a significant difference to the health of people living in the Southern DHB region.''
