Southland Hospital has no staff to run its nuclear medicine department and is in a "very critical position" because support from Dunedin Hospital has also been cut, a leaked memo says.
More than 700 Southland patients a year are referred to the department, which does bone, cardiac and internal organ scansthat are used to diagnose a variety of conditions, including bone, renal and cardiac disease and cancers.
Patients are already waiting up to two months for the scans but will soon have to wait a lot longer.
In the memo, medical imaging manager Shona Ellis says the hospital has had no luck filling a vacancy that arose in May.
Until two weeks ago, Dunedin Hospital was doing regular scans of Southland patients and sending a technologist to Invercargill every fifth week. "However, they are not in a position to continue to help us at the current level."
