Eileen Goodwin

Emergency departments are the ''barometer'' of the health service, Health Minister Tony Ryall said opening a new unit in Dunedin Hospital's ED.

Nearly three-quarters of patients who waited longer than six hours in the Dunedin Hospital emergency department in October were admitted to wards, new figures show.

A business consulting firm has identified $30 million in savings to be made in Southern District Health Board services over the next three years.

Reported instances of harm in Southern District Health Board hospitals are down 25%, a sign its hospitals have become safer, the board says.

The future of the southern neurosurgery service is now assured, with the announcement $3 million has been raised for the Chair in Neurosurgery at the University of Otago in Dunedin.

Opponents of testing party pills on animals are essentially advocating for a return to the medical Middle Ages, Dunedin toxicologist Dr Leo Schep says. 

Dunedin's largest medical practice says it can no longer afford to offer free health visits to a group of young patients.

The Southern District Health Board has been ranked the poorest-performing DHB in an assessment of doctors' and nurses' involvement in decision-making.

An incorrectly inserted nasogastric tube caused the death of a recuperating neurosurgery patient at Dunedin Hospital, Otago Southland coroner David Crerar has found.

Management of South Island bowel cancer patients is set to change ''fundamentally'' next year in an ambitious bid to eliminate excessive wait times, Dunedin oncologist Dr Chris Jackson says.

The mother of a young American backpacker who died in Dunedin Hospital has given a series of her own etchings to the hospital's intensive care unit.

The Southern District Health Board has gone back to the drawing board again on plans to provide long-awaited additional endoscopy facilities at Dunedin Hospital.

The Ministry of Health has called for tenders for a controversial new healthy eating initiative.

The Southern District Health Board (SDHB) was warned it could be ''losing sight of the bigger picture'' in its dealings with a patient whose biopsy specimen had been mixed up with another.

The level of science research funding in New Zealand is a "great embarrassment", and is similar to that of Papua New Guinea, says a University of Otago researcher.

It does not matter a "hoot" that a new healthy eating programme is behind schedule, because it is a "very inappropriate programme", University of Otago nutrition and diabetes expert Prof Jim Mann says.