Neurosurgery

Next month, cyclists can pedal confident in the knowledge their efforts will contribute to both their own fitness and a new neurosurgery fundraising campaign, writes Shane Gilchrist.

University College finance administration manager Pip Falloon, of Dunedin, had emergency neurosurgery at the age of 48 in 2009 after an aneurysm in the right side of her brain ruptured and haemorrhaged. Pip tells her story ...

A donation of $100,000 for neurosurgery has delighted organisers of a public fundraising campaign, and brings the overall tally to more than $900,000.

Cathy Matthews' life was saved by the service she championed but did not think she would need.

Exciting research possibilities lie ahead for the Dunedin academic unit of neurosurgery, clinical director of South Island neurosurgery Martin MacFarlane says.

One of the most uplifting local events of 2010 was the public campaign to keep neurosurgery in Dunedin and the South.

Funding options for the South Island neurosurgical service will be among the issues to be explored by the governance board in the coming year.

While a week is a long time in politics, a year is a short period for significant change in the health sector.

The second permanent neurosurgeon appointment has been made to the Dunedin node of the South Island Neurosurgery Service.

The first neurosurgeon appointed to the Dunedin hub of the South Island Neurosurgical Service, Ahmad Taha had no plans to stay when he arrived a year ago, but admits to falling in love with the place and the people.

The Southern District Health Board wanted to appoint a neurosurgeon for just two years, rather than for a longer term, causing "some tension" between Dunedin Hospital management and the South Island neurosurgical service, the National Health Board's Dunedin Hospital report reveals.

While Otago and Southland breathed a sigh of relief after the announcement last November that neurosurgery would be retained in Dunedin, many in New Zealand's neurosurgery community remained unhappy. Correspondence released to the Otago Daily Times shows how the battle raged on behind the scenes.

Far from being a deliberate ploy, the five-month delay in releasing correspondence from Canterbury neurosurgeons sought by the Otago Daily Times last December was an oversight, deputy director of the National Health Board Michael Hundleby says.

This month's shortlisting of applicants for two of the three Dunedin-based neurosurgeon positions shows how quickly the South Island Neurosurgical Service has been able to make progress since its first board meeting in January.

If the public thought all was sweetness and light in medical circles after the decision to retain neurosurgery in Dunedin, they were mistaken.

Did the Canterbury District Health Board, which for the most part chose to stay silent during the debate over location of South Island neurosurgery services, receive a fair hearing? Documentation released in February suggests it feels it did not, writes Elspeth McLean.