Chief executive Chris Fleming said an external review commissioned earlier this year would be made public in the next couple of weeks.
Yesterday, Radio New Zealand reported 10 prostate cancer patients at SDHB needed surgery, and had not been given a date.
Mr Fleming said he could not talk in detail about the problems, but he confirmed the concerns included delays in cancer surgery.
''What I do know is patients are being delayed unacceptably long and we need to fix that,'' he said.
The review was prompted by ''significant concerns about pressures within the service and non-compliance within the service''.
The waiting list for both outpatient services and surgery was ''rapidly growing''.
''We needed to look at how the service was functioning because we believe there were issues more than just resourcing there.''
It was likely the review would recommend extra resources.
''I imagine there will be some changes that I might not like, but we're going to have to front up and face them,'' Mr Fleming said.
Mr Fleming said the board could deal with the urology problem while continuing to reduce its deficit.
The board had received complaints from patients about the service, he said.
