Mike Houlahan

Research at laboratories in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin suggests saliva tests are just as effective at detecting Covid-19 as nasal swabs.

Projections a newly released report makes about the availability of aged residential care beds in the South might be optimistic, a local operator says.

Six more southerners who had Covid-19 have died, elevating Otago and Southland to fourth-highest in the regional toll of pandemic deaths.

Southern clinicians are receiving training this week on how to manage monkeypox, just as the first South Island case of the disease is reported.

The health system throws an enormous amount of material away but a Christchurch firm is trying to get facilities to consider recycling and reuse.

The health system throws an enormous amount of material away but a Christchurch firm is trying to get facilities, including two Dunedin hospitals, to consider recycling and reuse.

Southland Hospital’s assessment, treatment and rehabilitation ward has once more been closed because of Covid-19 and influenza exposure.

Government plans to boost the health workforce have brassed off the nurses’ union, which believes the reforms announced yesterday by Health Minister Andrew Little prioritise doctors.

The Ministry of Health has agreed to a range of proposed conditions, including extensive monitoring of any traffic and vibration issues, as it seeks fast-track building consent for the new Dunedin...

Southern Covid-19 hospitalisations remained high yesterday, as the number of new daily cases in Otago and Southland dropped below 400 for the first time since late June.

Dunedin GP Rama Ragupathy is a walking advertisement for the attractions of general practice.

There seems to be a steady stream of southern youngsters making their views known to Parliament.

Southern Covid-19 case numbers are continuing to fall, down almost 200 yesterday from the same time a week ago.

A pandemic has turned into a help, not a hindrance, to Otago efforts to stamp out hepatitis from the Pacific nation of Niue.

Active cases of Covid-19 in the South have dipped just below 5000, having almost reached 6000 a week ago.

The Dunedin branch of the Green Party is to reconsider its view over the party’s disputed co-leadership position.

Dunedin Hospital was so desperately short of nurses at the weekend that 21 students were called in to help, a decision strongly criticised by the nursing union.

Wastewater tests suggest the South has passed the peak of the current Omicron wave of Covid-19, but also confirm that cases in Otago and Southland remain substantially under-reported.