Health board will not be dumped, says minister

By JULIET ROWAN

Health Minister Annette King has dismissed Act Party claims that she plans to dump Auckland District Health Board management because of a huge deficit in the budget.

A spokesman for the minister yesterday denied claims by Act Party health spokeswoman Heather Roy that Ms King planned to appoint a commissioner to take over the running of the board.

Mrs Roy said sources in the ministry had confirmed that Ms King was considering the overhaul following a "$70 million deficit blowout" by the board. She said any such move would be unfair and premature, blaming the deficit on a lack of funding by Labour.

But board chairman Wayne Brown said last night that at a meeting in Wellington on Tuesday, Ms King had given no indication she wanted to appoint a commissioner.

He said the meeting, held to discuss the final stages of the board's 2004-2005 district annual plan, was very productive.

"I thought the minister had a very good understanding of the difficulties we face."

The deficit was closer to $60 million than the figure claimed by Mrs Roy, he said.

Ms King also released a statement yesterday saying the meeting had been successful.

She said an independent review of the financial section of the board's draft district annual plan had been completed.

"The broad financial and service parameters of the draft district annual plan were accepted," she said.

Some fine tuning to the plan would be made before it was submitted to ministers.

Tuesday's meeting was attended by Ms King, Mr Brown, board chief executive Garry Smith and ministry officials.