20 May 2021

Inquiry into Southern DHB bowel screening a 'distraction'

From Midday Report, 12:17 pm on 20 May 2021

The Ministry of Health is shunning calls for an inquiry into the Southern DHB's inclusion in the national bowel screening programme. Doctors, researchers and cancer-care campaigners are calling for an investigation saying lives have been lost because the health board was ill-equipped to deliver colonoscopies to those showing symptoms of cancer, let alone the added workload of screening, when it joined the programme in 2018. RNZ's Dunedin reporter Tim Brown has been following this story and speaks to Max Towle.