The Otago and Southland District Health Boards should continue to rely on the market to decide on the number of aged-care residential beds rather than turn away any new providers, the boards' general manager of planning and funding, David Chrisp, says.
A mental health day centre which provides activities and support to scores of vulnerable people might have to close due to funding cuts, Advisory and Support Centre Otago (Asco) deputy chairman Graham Hambleton says.
Most elderly who have appealed against losing their housework help are also losing their battle with the southern health boards.
Funding from a Dunedin charitable trust has enabled the city to lure a leading New Zealand surgeon and researcher home.
Work done by Cranleigh merchant bankers looking at the future of rural hospitals, tops the list of outside consultancy costs paid by the Otago District Health Board this year.
Extra administration staff have been brought in to help with the large number of appeals from elderly people who do not want to lose their housework assistance, Otago and Southland District Health Boards' regional planning and funding general manager David Chrisp says.
Haggling over the first joint Otago and Southland district health boards' annual plan has begun, with the Ministry of Health questioning the level of deficit proposed for next year.
Thirty-eight people have entered a logo competition for the new southern health board.
News of a national alliance between pharmacists and general practitioners is "music to our ears" Otago District Health Board chairman Errol Millar says.
The Otago District Health Board will struggle to find the $1.5 million to meet the national pay agreement reached this week and does not have the money to extend the 2% increase to those in community health services.
There were no emotional speeches or cheering from the public gallery as the Otago District Health Board finished the public section of its final meeting on Thursday.
A mental health outpatient programme at Dunedin Hospital may be closed, in a proposed move described as "radical" by a Dunedin psychotherapist.
The Otago District Health Board is likely to seek the approval of the Minister of Health to sell a surplus block of land at Wakari Hospital.
It was easier to raise money for a 3-year-old with cancer than the "nameless, faceless" sick little babies in neonatal intensive care units, Weta Workshop co-founder Richard Taylor told an audience in Dunedin last night.
Hundreds of elderly people have appealed against losing their housework help.
The Otago and Southland district health boards' compensation package from Telecom is worth about $24,300, says regional chief information officer Grant Taylor.
Strike action by medical radiation technologists is escalating because pay talks have broken down and District Health Boards New Zealand will not come back to the bargaining table, says union delegate Bernadette Gourley.
The Otago District Health Board will review national and Australasian Caesarean section rates in light of the board's climbing rate of Caesarean births.
Reaction by general practitioners to the outcome of the recent audit report of 33 referrals to Dunedin Hospital colonoscopy service has been positive, South Link Health executive director Prof Murray Tilyard said.
Thirty-four elderly people in Otago and Southland have appealed health board housework cuts, according to Otago and Southland district health boards regional planning and funding manager David Chrisp.
