KEY POINTS:
It's hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for many of the sacked members of the Hawkes Bay District Health Board, who have now launched a potent attack on Health Minister David Cunliffe.
Unceremoniously dumped from their jobs, they feel they are the victims of an unwanted saga that was started by former Health Minister Annette King, allowed to fester by her successor Pete Hodgson, and has now been unfairly cauterised by Mr Cunliffe.
From the moment Ms King appointed Peter Hausmann to the board in 2005, things started turning pear-shaped in the region known as the fruit-bowl of New Zealand.
There were immediate concerns among other board members that Mr Hausmann's company, Healthcare of New Zealand, would probably be involved in tendering for a DHB contract worth up to $50 million.
Indeed it was, and a conflict of interest arose. Life for the board would have been a lot easier if it had never had to deal with the Hausmann conflict - although that is not to say that such conflicts cannot be managed successfully.
However, this one spiralled out of control when a whistleblower stumbled across an email that appeared to suggest Mr Hausmann knew more about details of the upcoming tender than he should have.
And so began an ugly battle that has seen Mr Hausmann vigorously defend his integrity, the board lurch into the media spotlight in a way that hasn't done it any favours, and relations between the Beehive and the board break down as an inquiry into the matter drags on and on.
The people who really matter in this whole drama are the residents of Hawkes Bay, who need good health services.
And it is those very people who voted long-time board chairman Kevin Atkinson and several more of these board members back into their jobs only last October.
But Mr Cunliffe has run out of patience. He wants to clear the decks and put in a commissioner, though he is yet to see the final inquiry report and find who is at fault.
The delay in that report has made the jobs of the board members virtually impossible for months - Mr Hausmann remains on the board, which is limping along with fewer members than it should be, waiting for the report to decide who stays and who goes.
But for all the legitimate questions that will be raised about Mr Cunliffe's action in coming days, it's hard to see how the board could realistically have got on with the job if he had left it in place.
Relations between the board and the chief executive are tense at best, and some clinicians have asked for the board to be removed. Others have backed it.
The board would likely have soldiered on until the inquiry - which it turns out the board itself is legally challenging - finally gets released. That could take months.
Together with the unlikely prospect of Mr Cunliffe patching things up with Mr Atkinson, that scenario makes a clean slate begin to look attractive not only politically but also operationally.
Regardless of how unfair it might be to the sacked board members.
