Government monitor to watch over troubled Counties Manukau DHB

The Government has moved to plant its own monitor in the embattled Counties Manukau District Health Board, as the fallout over its mouldy and leaky buildings refuses to abate.

Health Minister David Clark has announced that Ken Whelan would be monitoring the board as it worked to recover from a number of revelations over the state of hospital buildings at Middlemore Hospital and controversy over who knew what and when.

Clark has also named three new DHB chairs for Auckland, Waitemata and Counties Manukau – signalling a permanent split from the single chair model that ran under Lester Levy.

Levy now sits on Clark’s highlevel ‘‘health advisory group’’ to help him allocate health funding.

Levy was the chairman of all three boards until December and presided over Counties Manukau during the bulk of building management issues.

Clark announced Pat Snedden will lead Auckland DHB from June 1, Judy McGregor at Waitemata DHB from June 10 and Vui Mark Gosche at Counties Manukau DHB from May 3.

Both the Government and DHB have been in damage control following revelations that several buildings at Middlemore Hospital had extreme mould, asbestos and raw sewage issues. The board chairs announcement also signals the end to a bitter relationship fallout between the minister and former acting DHB chairman, Rabin Rabindran over the building saga.

Three months after taking the job, Rabindran was asked by Clark to fight to keep his role. This was about the same time it emerged the DHB had handed the minister a dossier of information on the full extent of the building issues at the DHB.