Despite fearing it could be wasting its time, the Wakatipu health governance reference group will continue its deliberations over a governance model for the area's health services, chairman Graeme Todd says.
As the last DHB in New Zealand to move from paper to computer to assess elderly people's care needs, Southern District Health Board's introduction of a computer-based system has been successful so far, mental health and community services Otago general manager Elaine Chisnall says.
Chlamydia and gonorrhoea rates in the South dropped significantly in 2010, the latest annual report on sexually transmitted infections says.
"Care managers" would help the elderly to remain in the community under proposals to be put to a Southern District Health Board committee today.
Proposed sexual health funding restrictions come just as an access programme is starting to show results, Dunedin Sexual Health Clinic clinical leader Dr Jill McIlraith says.
A suggestion that an already-deferred Otago Peninsula cycleway project might mss out on future funding has upset Peninsula Community Board deputy chairwoman Christine Garey.
Two Ministry of Health-funded workshops were held in Dunedin yesterday on female circumcision, a cultural practice which is illegal in New Zealand.
A long-running dispute between two recreational groups over reserve land in Waikouaiti is still unresolved, and the Dunedin City Council will decide who gets to use it.
The Otago Peninsula Community Board is writing to Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson to demand harsher penalties for wildlife smugglers.
The Otago Peninsula Community Board plans to give the balance of its community projects fund to its earthquake-affected counterpart in Lyttelton, and encourages other community boards to do the same.
The Southern Primary Health Organisation has written to Otago and Southland GPs to allay concerns about its proposed clinical programme.
Dunedin is the "perfect model" for developing the knowledge-based environmentally conscious society to which New Zealand should aspire, Prof Sir Paul Callaghan says.
Dunedin GPs are criticising the Southern Primary Health Organisation's proposed funding changes, saying it is offering to pay for procedures that come under the district health board, while leaving other patients in the lurch.
A funding boost for dementia is insufficient to deal with a "staggering" wave of cases the aged care sector will face, Otago-Southland Aged Care Association board member Malcolm Hendry says.
The parents of a Dunedin toddler who died on the way to participating in research in the United States on his rare metabolic disorder say they are proud they made the last months of their son's short life special.
The funding boost for dementia care is the "good news item" for the Southern District Health Board, funding and finance general manager Robert Mackway-Jones says.
Yesterday's Budget does not address the "fundamentals of health" and appears to be damage control, Paula Stickings says.
A proposal to offer free dental care for "high needs" adults has upset some in the health sector who warn against putting money into "rotten teeth", Southern Primary Health Organisation chairman Dr Conway Powell says.
A complaint about two Dunedin police officers by a Sawyers Bay man convicted for assaulting a 14-year-old skateboarder who collided with him has been rejected by the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA).
The Southern District Health Board saves about $2000, plus travel and other expenses, every month Health Minister Tony Ryall does not make the final appointment to its board.
