Some Southland District Health Board members yesterday criticised board communication over the proposed changes to services for the elderly, saying it had caused unnecessary anxiety.
Neville Cook told the board meeting in Invercargill the Otago and Southland boards' disability support advisory committee he chairs had been stressing the need for good communication around the matter for some months.
There had been confusion over what was happening, with some people waiting for letters advising them about their future service and it was like "a big black cloud" hanging over them.
This had left a gap "for a lot of misinformation".
The board needed to learn from the experience and be more conscious of the need to communicate clearly and in a timely manner when making changes, he said.
Member Kaye Crowther said members had not been kept informed so they could address any issues which came up in the community.
Regional planning and funding general manager David Chrisp said he accepted communications could have been better.
Boards' chief executive Brian Rousseau said in future the boards would have to buy space in newspapers because although information had been put out to the media, it had been used selectively and the full story not provided.
Deputy chairwoman Susie Johnstone said board members needed to remember that while none of them felt comfortable reducing services to the elderly, the boards were providing these services at a level above that funded.
"If you are over-providing in one area, you must, by default, be under-providing somewhere else."
At the beginning of the meeting, a deputation critical of the planned cuts to housework support drew applause from the public gallery.
Former Labour MP Lesley Soper called for the policy to be reversed and Grey Power president Geoff Piercy said the board was looking for savings in the wrong place.
He suggested the board could reduce its administration and provide home support services itself rather than contract them out.
