List of chairpersons of district health boards

During the local government term, several changes occurred. Michael Ludbrook replaced Ian Wilson as chair of the Waikato DHB in June 2002.[7] Wayne Brown was forced to resign as chair of the Tairāwhiti DHB. He had been appointed as chair for both Auckland and Tairāwhiti, but had also been elected onto the Tairāwhiti board. As an elected member, he was not permitted to also hold a position on another district health board.[8] Rick Bettle left the West Coast DHB at the end of 2002 and after Dr Christine Robertson was acting chairperson for two months, King appointed Professor Gregor Coster as the new chair on 11 February 2003.[9] Peter Glensor replaced Warren Young at the Hutt Valley DHB in June 2003.[10] Gavin Doyle resigned from Whanganui DHB and was replaced by acting chair Patrick O'Connor.[11]

During the local government term, several changes occurred. Alex Grooby, the chair of the Nelson Marlborough DHB, died in July 2005.[12] Pete Hodgson took over as Health Minister from Annette King in October 2005. Hodgson appointed Suzanne Win as successor to Grooby in Nelson Marlborough, effective 1 January 2006.[13] Hodgson appointed Bob Francis to take over as chairperson for Wairarapa DHB from Doug Matheson on 28 November 2006.[14] Dr Judith Aitken replaced Bob Henare for Capital and Coast DHB on 24 December 2006.[15] Dr Patrick O'Connor resigned as chairperson of Whanganui DHB on 1 May 2007[16] and was replaced by Kate Joblin on 3 May 2007.[17]

During the local government term, several changes occurred. Cunliffe appointed two Crown Monitors to the Whanganui DHB, but left the chairperson in place.[22]

With the 8 November 2008 general election, the Fifth National Government came into power and the role of Health Minister was assigned to Tony Ryall.[23] On 5 December 2008, Southland DHB chair Dennis Cairns foreshadowed his resignation; he chaired his last board meeting on 30 January 2009.[24] In December 2008, Ryall foreshadowed that the board of Hawke's Bay DHB elected in 2007 would be reinstated from February 2009, with the current commissioner John Anderson taking the chairmanship.[25] In February 2009, Kay McKelvie's[lower-alpha 1] and Jerry Rickman's[lower-alpha 2] resignations as chairpersons of the Waitemata and Waikato DHBs were announced, respectively.[28][29] Also in February, Ryall sacked the Otago DHB chairperson, Richard Thomson, over a $17 million fraud by staff members and replaced him with immediate effect with Errol Millar.[30] In March 2009, Ryall appointed Paul Menzies as the new chairperson of Southland DHB.[31] In May 2009, Ryall announced Graeme Milne as the new chairperson for Waikato DHB.[32] Dr Lester Levy's appointment as the new chair for the Waitemata DHB was announced in June 2009.[33]

There is a statutory limit of nine years for DHB chairpersons, as defined in the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000, and several chairs reached this limit at the end of 2009. This affected Northland chair Lynette Stewart, who was replaced by Tony Norman.[34] For the South Canterbury DHB, Joe Butterfield was replaced by Murray Cleverley.[35]

In February 2010, Ryall announced that the Otago and Southland District Health Boards would merge to form the Southern District Health Board, with a combined board of the elected members providing provisional oversight until the local elections in October 2010.[36] The merger came into effect on 1 May 2010, with Errol Millar (ex Otago DHB) as chair and Paul Menzies (ex Southland DHB) as deputy chair.[37] Taranaki DHB chair John Young died on 14 September 2010, a month prior to the next local body election.[38]

In October 2014, the role of Health Minister went from Ryall to Jonathan Coleman. In March 2015, it became known that Coleman intended to replace Southern DHB chair, Joe Butterfield, with a new chair.[43] In May 2015, the government passed the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill. This allowed it to keep the commissioners for the Southern DHB in place, with no district health board elections held in that area in 2016.[44] In June 2015, Coleman sacked the entire board and replaced them with commissioners.[45]

After Murray Cleverley's February 2017 resignation from the two boards that he chaired, Coleman appointed his successors in August 2017. John Wood was appointed to the Canterbury DHB, and Ron Luxton took over the chairmanship of the South Canterbury DHB.[48]

After the 2017 general election, the Sixth Labour Government of New Zealand formed and David Clark succeeded Coleman as Minister of Health.[49] Lester Levy resigned in December 2017 as chair of all three Auckland region DHBs as he was nearing the statutory limit of service on the Waitematā DHB, where he had been appointed in June 2009.[50] Clark appointed three new chairpersons: Mark Gosche for Counties-Manukau DHB (from 3 May), Pat Snedden for Auckland DHB (from 1 June), and Judy McGregor for Waitemata DHB (from 10 June).[51] In August 2018, Clark appointed Sally Webb, already the chair of Bay of Plenty DHB, as chairperson for Waikato DHB. At the same time, a Crown Monitor was appointed at Waikato.[52] On 7 May 2019, Clark sacked the board of Waikato DHB and installed Dr Karen Poutasi as a commissioner. Clark also announced that there would be no elections for a new board at the 2019 local elections.[53][54]

Effective 8 March 2020, Sir Michael Cullen resigned from his chairmanship of the Bay of Plenty DHB after he had been diagnosed with small cell carcinoma.[56] The deputy chair, Sharon Shea, is acting interim chair and the process for appointing a new permanent chairperson is underway.[57]