New Zealand's first academic neurosurgery unit is being set up in Dunedin, headed by Belgian neurosurgeon Prof Dirk De Ridder, who will have joint clinical and academic duties. He arrives in February, and spoke to reporter Eileen Goodwin by email this week.
A neurosurgeon has been hired for a year at Dunedin Hospital.
The Southern District Health Board says its 15-bed Dunedin residential service for people with mental illness or addiction problems should be cut to 10.
A much-needed addition to Dunedin Hospital will be developed in 2014, in the form of a new outpatient endoscopy unit.
The expert panel inquiring into laboratory mistakes meets today and tomorrow in Wellington, for members' first face-to-face meeting, Ministry of Health chief medical officer Dr Don Mackie says.
Dunedin Hospital emergency department staff apologised to the family of a Dunedin woman who died from an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) rupture that the department failed to diagnose, a coroner's finding reveals.
Induced births at Dunedin's Queen Mary Maternity Centre are being studied.
Drugs being developed for Parkinson's disease are probably not a magic cure for the degenerative disease, but have researchers excited by what they are seeing in rodent studies, visiting neurophysiologist Associate Prof Anthony West told a public lecture at the University of Otago yesterday.
Babies can have mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder if they do not have a good relationship with a carer who understands their point of view, Dr Denise Guy, a Wellington-based child psychiatrist says.
Having missed out on the second-in-charge role at the Southern District Health Board, Vivian Blake is leaving after nine years as Otago chief operating officer.
Waihemo Pharmacy owner Adrian Graamans is warning customers he might stop dispensing early next month, sparking concern the community could lose the service.
To celebrate 25 years with her donated kidney, Outram woman Anita Lloyd took it home to Wellington.
People who decide not to vaccinate their children should think of those in the community with immune deficiencies, two Dunedin mothers say.
Funding an alternative to anti-blood-clotting treatment warfarin will make a huge difference to patients, who will no longer need constant monitoring, Dunedin Hospital cardiologist Associate Prof Michael Williams says.
Because "a young guy with a sore back" is not likely to think of arthritis, serious cases of spinal arthritis can go undiagnosed,Wanaka ankylosing spondylitis (AS) sufferer Bryan Moore says.
Population-based funding appears to deal unfairly to Southern District Health Board, University of Otago health policy specialist Associate Prof Robin Gauld says.
A beefed-up KiwiSaver and a gradually rising age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation are the core of a proposal the savings industry says would put future retirement income on a sounder footing.
Some GPs fear providing free after-hours care to under-6s will put more pressure on already stretched services, particularly in tourist towns and rural areas, Southern Primary Health Organisation chief executive Ian Macara says.
More than 100 patients with non-urgent conditions are sitting on "active review" in the Southern District Health Board's ear, nose, and throat service, meaning the DHB would like to offer them surgery within 18 months.
A plan for district health boards to assume responsibility for hiring first-year GP registrars has failed, the New Zealand Medical Association says.
