Recently an assessment of Dunedin Hospital was done and within its report few negative remarks were mentioned against District Health Board's (DHB's) clinical and non-clinical leadership. But towards this report, the Southern DHB boss is trying to leap to the defense of Dunedin Hospital management.

To have a discussion over this negative assessment of Dunedin Hospital, Brian Rousseau, CEO of Southern District Health Board (Southern DHB) even had a meeting with the National Health Board Deputy Director Michael Hundleby today. He said that targeting DHB's clinical and non-clinical leadership is something really unfair because these are the people who for improving the quality of services for the community work tirelessly day and night.

However, both the men continue to disagree with the negative comments of this report and therefore desires for the implementation of their recommendations. According to them, this is now their first priority to focus upon.

As told by Mr. Hundleby, "I acknowledge that the report does contain some matters of fact over which we disagree, but I stand by the recommendations in the report which reflect information in the DHB's own reports. However, there is still a long way to go to achieve real clinical service integration across the region, and that now needs to be the primary focus of the Southern DHB".