The Ministry of Health has no plans to change its four-year bowel cancer screening pilot which it says will give it time to watch and consider emerging evidence about other screening developments.
The usual process for deciding who oversees school mergers has been set aside and Education Minister Anne Tolley will allow South Dunedin schools to have a say in how a potential merger will proceed.
After being brushed off by the Minister of Health, the Ministry of Health and the Human Rights Commission, a group of parents of Down syndrome children, and the pro-life organisation Right to Life,...
Concern that Health Minister Tony Ryall is creating a climate of fear in the health sector has been raised by Green Party health spokesman and former district health board chief executive, Kevin Hague.
District health boards' autonomy is quietly reducing and could reach the point where board members are little more than "mini monitors of performance", retiring Southern District Health Board chairman Errol Millar says.
Health Minister Tony Ryall will not reappoint Errol Millar as chairman of the next Southern District Health Board.
Southern District Health Board election statistics issued by the Ministry of Health this week have been revised following the discovery that more than 6000 Southland informal and blank votes were not included.
Concerns raised by the Otago Daily Times about the the Ministry of Health's refusal to provide a privacy impact assessment on the B4 School programme have shown up anomalies which the Office of the Ombudsmen is to raise with the Privacy Commissioner.
A woman's lengthy battle to have her 62-year-old partner with Parkinson's disease provided with respite care in a place suited to his age has been successful.
The Southern District Health Board's hopes of saving about $1.2 million a year by charging for laboratory tests ordered by private specialists have been dashed by the Government.
The Ministry of Health says it had no deliberate intention to mislead or misinform anyone when it incorrectly advised the Otago Daily Times last week it had not received any feedback on the make-up of the panel to review neurosurgery services.
The much-anticipated terms of reference for the South Island neurosurgical service expert panel released yesterday do not spell out how the panel will carry out its work.
Confirmation that electronic "signatures" will be allowed for Dunedin Hospital's national e-prescribing pilot, means the scheme should go ahead in two wards in September.
Pete Hodgson sounds a warning about neurosurgery in Otago and Southland, and explains why.
The number of influenza vaccines distributed in Otago this year to the end of June is 4780 more than the number for the corresponding time last year.
Despite a suggestion last week that southerners could write to the Director-general of Health, Stephen McKernan, with their concerns about neurosurgery service plans, no letters have yet been received by his office.
The damaging hiatus on neurosurgery in Dunedin continues, leaving the city and the South poorly covered at present and with an uncertain future.
If people do not speak up, Southland and Otago may lose a critical surgical service - with all the significant flow-on impacts. Richard Thomson leads the way.
While millions of dollars of claims relating to sleepover pay have yet to be determined, the Government has listed the issue as an unquantified risk in this year's Budget.
The Southern Health Board expects to spend $705,935 next financial year on B4 school checks for 3050 children.
