At Facebook:
The Dunedin Hospital eye department’s throughput is commendable despite the lack of chairs and wait space provided by the fat cat, high fee-earning Team of Commissioners led by lawyer Kathy Grant….
As a user of the department’s services, there’s been no impediment to my eye treatment and monitoring at any time. I have never had to sit on the floor, nor would I even contemplate doing so —silly Sheep!
The staff were exactly right to complain to their union.
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### ODT Online Wed, 5 Jul 2017
Elderly patients forced to sit on floor
By Eileen Goodwin
Older patients were forced to sit on the floor while waiting for an appointment in the crisis-hit eye department at Dunedin Hospital, prompting a complaint from staff to their union. Public Service Association organiser Julie Morton said the lack of adequate waiting space was a health and safety issue. “There are frequently not enough seats in the waiting room to accommodate those waiting, and they have to sit on the floor,” Mrs Morton wrote to the Southern District Health Board last month. Some of the patients who had to sit on the floor were older people.
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D’oh, Ms Kathy Grant doesn’t believe in the value of Democracy in the Southern Region. Does the Southern community want the non-egalitarian, fryable Ms Grant to serve out her term to 2019.
### ODT Online Wed, 5 Jul 2017
Need for elected health board role downplayed
By Eileen Goodwin
The “truly unique” arrangements at Southern District Health Board will not adversely affect the Dunedin Hospital rebuild, commissioner Kathy Grant says. The Government is planning a hospital redevelopment potentially worth more than $1billion, and there are no elected representatives to influence the project because the board was sacked. Mrs Grant said the SDHB’s relationship with the Ministry of Health was no different than if an elected board was in place. “I’m not sure what additional dimension the existence of a traditional board would necessarily bring to that relationship.” […] The Otago Daily Times has been told by a contact, who would not be named, that the Cabinet would consider three options outlined [for the proposed new hospital] in an indicative business case, the most expensive of which costs more than $1 billion. After that decision, the rebuild governance group and the ministry would look at where to build and whether land needed to be acquired.
Read more
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
*Image: dailymail.co.uk – article: Why are my blinking eyes so sore and watery?