Children will miss out on specialised medical services they were to get for the first time in Canterbury and the District Health Board's health funding woes are to blame.
The district health board does not have enough money to staff two newly built units designed exclusively for children in its Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit.
It also cannot afford to keep its existing Emergency Department observation unit going.
The DHB is struggling to make $60 million of government-ordered savings amid an exodus of top executives and staff protests.
The board chair and the DHB Crown Monitor, who've been at odds with top managers who have quit en masse, both promised last month there would be no cuts to services.
But the acting clinical director of the emergency department Dr Mark Gilbert is not going to get the 15 extra staff he needs.
That means the new children's unit will be empty and young patients will be treated alongside adults.
The DHB was approached for comment CDHB chief executive David Meates is being farewelled this week and in a message to staff laid the blame for the DHB's deficit squarely on the Government.
