doctors

“Top-down decision-making by health bosses creates potential risks for health services on the West Coast and also possibly for Nelson-Marlborough,” said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today.

“Serious risks arise when clinical relationships are forced to follow structural changes. For example, there is a web of clinical relationships between the West Coast and Christchurch Hospital which has worked very well for the people of West Coast. On the other hand, for equally logical reasons Nelson Marlborough has important clinical relations with Wellington Hospital. Whatever the future structure of the two DHBs, these relationships must not be jeopardised.”

Today was our first day of service in the Auckland DHB area, and once again I’m very comfortable with the way the transition is progressing. It’s been a good start to the Auckland handover, with no significant issues reported on any aspect of the service.

The Labtests customer services team, currently visiting Auckland practices to prepare them for service handover, will be important advocates for the community as well as key supports for GP and practice staff, says Labtests Customer Services Manager Joe Solomona.

Suggestions that lengthy patient queues in Labtests’ collection centres are caused by Labtests not getting the Diagnostic Medlab (DML) doctor database are nothing more than a smokescreen for poor performance, says the chief executive of DML, Arthur Morris.

Accusations that Diagnostic Medlab (DML) is monitoring queues in Labtests Auckland’s collection centres is laughable and smacks of desperation, says the chief executive of DML, Arthur Morris.

The recent article in The Press, ‘An accident waiting to happen’ 11/04/09, highlights the fact that New Zealand’s health system is 50 years out of date and radical changes are needed.