13 January 2006
DHB Director of Planning and Service Development moves on
Bay of Plenty District Health Board's Director of Planning and Service Development has resigned.
Dr Kletchko leaves the health board to join Nelson Marlborough District Health Board in the role of General Manager of
Planning and Funding, and will also be in a national role as Chief Quality Advisor to the Ministry of Health as a
part-time secondment. She sees this as a logical progression in her career, which began with a desire to improve the
quality of the healthcare system, initially as a specialist physician and then through influencing the broader health
sector.
Dr Kletchko has worked in New Zealand since the early 1980s in a number of hands-on clinical roles, as the Clinical
Director of Middlemore Hospital's Home Dialysis Training Unit and then the Intensive Care Unit. In 1992, she was the
Chief Medical Advisor for the Ministry of Health and led the team supporting the Core Health Service's Ministerial
Advisory Committee (became the National Health Committee). Sharon was appointed Clinical Director Emergency Services
based at Tauranga Hospital from 1993 and helped to usher in the new Emergency Department, chaired the Regional Emergency
Care Coordination Team and was part of the collaborative group of agencies that transformed the New Year's events at the
Mount following the chaos of 2000.
Dr Kletchko has had numerous other roles during her tenure in Tauranga including being a member of PHARMAC's
Pharmacological Technical Advisory Group, as Director of both the Southern Regional Health Authority and Transitional
Health Authority and chair of numerous committees for Standards New Zealand and the Ministry of Health. She has been a
member of the National Health and Epidemiology Advisory Committee (Epiqual) to the Minister of Health.
Bay of Plenty District Health Board Acting Chief Executive, Graham Dyer, says that Dr Kletchko's efforts and
achievements over her time with the health board have been significant, and she leaves behind a legacy of both clinical
development (especially in the Emergency Department), and more recently population health development through leadership
of the Planning and Service Development Team.
Dr Kletchko's resignation is effective from 3 February 2006.
ENDS