Southern District Health Board candidate Richard Thomson says he will drop some of his private business workload if re-elected to the health board, which he says faces increased pressures.
''I think the DHB is going to face even more challenges over the next year or two, including the retention of services locally,'' Mr Thomson said. The former Otago board chairman had been undecided about whether to put himself forward for another term, due to the workload.
He is one of five elected board members standing again in Otago and Southland.
Appointed board member, Tim Ward, is also standing, in Southland. Gordon Sanderson, who has taught ophthalmology at the Dunedin School of Medicine since his arrival from England in 1972, said his tertiary teaching award last month and his subsequent public criticism of the health board for merely tolerating the medical school prompted him to stand.
Overseas, teaching hospitals had an excellent reputation. He did not think enough was made of the fact the South had a prominent medical school.
Another candidate seeking to improve the DHB-medical school relationship is former Otago health board member Mary Gamble. The former midwife returned to her home country of Ireland in 2007, where she assisted a then new medical school in Limerick to place its students in surrounding hospitals. She returned to New Zealand in 2011.
East Otago and Dunedin pharmacy owner Adrian Graamans, Dunedin Hospital senior doctor John Chambers, and former pharmacist Peter Barron (a former Otago board member) would also bring a clinical focus to the board.
