Some central Auckland patients could be treated at North Shore and Waitakere Hospitals under a spirit of collaboration, the man now responsible for nearly one million Aucklanders' health has indicated.

The Auckland District Health Board will apologise to a mother whose unborn baby did not survive a publicly funded procedure at Auckland Hospital and was sent a $2200 bill for the treatment.

The Associate Health Minister says he is confident it is safe for a schizophrenic man who beat a friend to death to be out unescorted in public, despite the victim's brother's pleas.

Vulnerable health workers are being suspended without pay to intimidate them into ending their industrial action, the lab workers' union says.

Hospital falls caused more than a quarter of the major "adverse events" listed by DHBs in their latest report on potentially preventable healthcare harm.