The Otago District Health Board should be "at least thinking" about whether it was funding mental health the right way, following the recent Deloitte report criticising board funding and planning processes, member Susie Johnstone says.
The swine flu epidemic has affected the amount of surgery at Dunedin Hospital recently, the Otago District Health Board hospital advisory committee has been told.
The Otago District Health Board cannot go on forever "in a state of limbo" about its multi-million dollar plans to upgrade substandard facilities, hospital advisory committee chairman Richard Thomson said yesterday.
My morning routine has been shattered. Heck, I might even get to work on time now.
The reasons why the Clayton Weatherston trial was transferred have not been released, but those for moving the trial of Colin Bouwer and the retrial of David Bain, both by Justice Graham Panckhurst, have been. Elspeth McLean reports.
The "very flavour of the case" led to the decision to transfer the Colin Bouwer murder trial to the High Court at Christchurch, Justice Graham Panckhurst said in his June 2001 decision.
Otago and Southland District Health Boards over-priced their own mental health services by almost $5.5 million last year, severely limiting funding for outside community services, a report on their planning and funding processes says.
Public Health South should allow itself plenty of time if it wishes to make a "quality submission" to the New Zealand Law Commission's discussion paper on the Sale of Liquor Act, Errol Millar says.
Although rural hospitals cautioned against a centrally-managed service for assessing the elderly's needs for community services, because it would have a detrimental effect on patients, they found out this week that is what is being proposed.
A report which said separate funding for Otago and Southland district health boards was limiting opportunities for shared mental health services and innovation in Queenstown Lakes-Central Otago was questioned this week by Errol Millar.
Concern that too many 5-year-olds in Otago and Southland will miss out on having health checks, even if targets for the B4 School programme are met, were raised at this week's district health boards committee meeting.
It has been "one of the worst years" for black ice on Otago and Southland roads and it is not over yet, the New Zealand Transport Agency's Otago-Southland operations manager, Murray Clarke, says.
The suspension of a plan to force the addition of folic acid to bread will result in the continued abortion and natural death of scores of babies with preventable deformities, a health campaigner says.
Students working in the kitchen at the new Otago Polytechnic's hospitality school will soon star in their own reality television show.
Dunedin City Council festival and events funding should not place too much emphasis on events which will make money for the city and attract tourists, the council has been told.
Rural communities could lose their hard-won voice in the health system in political posturing over community health services, long-time rural health services campaigner Walter Dalziel says.
The number of people turning up at Dunedin Hospital's emergency department with flu-like symptoms does not appear to be out of the ordinary, despite the recent influx of students returning from holidays.
Dunedin and Invercargill Hospitals are prepared to take in patients from the swine flu swamped Christchurch Hospital, but no patients have yet been transferred.
The number of confirmed cases of swine flu rose by 40 nationally yesterday, to 2025, but there were no more reports of deaths related to the illness.
Responses by southern primary health organisations (PHO) to a paper suggesting there should be some mergers, shows most would prefer closer collaboration.
