A recent failure of the 1650-phone system, which was being kept together with "Elastoplast", highlighted the way the board was living with risks which could cause major harm to patients, chief executive Brian Rousseau told the board.
In a meeting dominated by financial concerns, the board approved an urgent request to spend $341,597 on the phones to prop up a system which "should have been replaced a long time ago".
Work had started on installing a new digital system, but budget constraints meant it could not proceed as fast as desirable.
Regular breakdowns in the 26-year-old PABX system meant staff were frequently patching it after scouring the country for parts, but the last straw came at 11.30pm on February 25, when parts of the system failed, including the link between Dunedin and Wakari Hospitals.
It was not restored until 2am.
Speaking after yesterday's board meeting, regional chief information officer Grant Taylor said at no stage had people been unable to phone in to the hospital, but if the whole system failed, that could happen.
He told the board there would be catastrophic consequences if the system failed completely.
When seeking the funding, Mr Rousseau said the board had become conditioned to certain levels of risk, which could ultimately become a major problem. He called it the "scalded frog syndrome", where if a frog was put in cold water and the temperature raised gradually, the frog could become accustomed to it and slowly die, but if it was thrown into hot water it would immediately jump out.
The board voted for the cheaper of two options, choosing to use 40 recycled digital-to-analogue converters, which would allow old analogue handsets to be used by the digital system Cisco Call Manager, which is being gradually installed.
This option, which Mr Taylor hoped would be in place in about four weeks, would be faster and cheaper than replacing all the old PABX extensions used with the new digital phones.
Replacement had been estimated to cost an about $911,00, excluding installation and cabling costs, which were unknown, and would take eight to 10 months to complete.
Board member Tahu Potiki asked for reassurance approval of the cheaper option would not mean the board risked "opening Pandora's box and going holy cow!" at its next meeting because extra costs had arisen.
Mr Rousseau said the chosen option had clearly defined costs.
It was also worth noting the second option, of replacing all the phones, would become increasingly cheaper as the technology became more common.
If the board chose not to replace all of the analogue phones in the long term, any converters no longer in use would be sold to help offset costs.
