Yesterday's Chronicle published comments from Michael Laws and Clive Solomon, members of the Whanganui and MidCentral District Health Boards, which suggested that the dual appointment of three new board members signalled the end of Wanganui health services. WDHB Chair Kate Joblin has refuted the "nonsense" claims, saying that the community will in no way lose its health services.

"To believe the dual appointments between Whanganui and MidCentral are about having one board and one main hospital for the region is not only incorrect but also small-minded and completely lacks understanding of how specialist level services operate in 2010", said Ms. Joblin.

Indeed, eight of New Zealand's twenty health boards have dual chair and deputy appointments. These are designed to facilitate greater regional collaboration in the planning and delivery of health services around the country. Ms. Joblin said that in the case of the Whanganui DHB, the dual appointment strategy was inteded to strengthen services and make Wanganui Hospital a centre of excellence.

She credited many of the successes of the hospital to its collaboration with the MidCentral DHB. "Just one of these successes is that our hospital is receiving significant additional funding to perform 150 operations for MidCentral patients that can not be done by Palmerston North Hospital".