Striding out on road to recovery

On his 21st birthday, recovering spinal injury patient Austen Haig will run the Moro Half Marathon in Dunedin.

In April last year, the second-year University of Otago student faced the possibility of life in a wheelchair, after a serious rugby accident, and was given a 20% to 30% chance of walking again.

Now, he is to run the September 9 half-marathon with his physiotherapist Mark Shirley, raising money for the Chair in Neurosurgery campaign.

Brain house - SOLD

Auctions push appeal past $2.1 million mark

Neurosurgery Campaign reaches $2 million - Southland Times

The Chair of Neurosurgery Fund has reached $2 million in 10 weeks – though only 4 per cent of the funding so far has come from Southland.

Southern neurosurgery clinical director Martin MacFarlane said this was despite the fact about 50 per cent of the patients coming through the neurosurgery unit at Dunedin were from Southland.

Southern Businesses urged to support Neurosurgery Campaign

The South's business community is being urged to back the campaign to raise $3 million for neurosurgery.

Otago Southland Employers Association (OSEA) chief executive John Scandrett said the industry organisation was taking the "quite unusual" step of petitioning its members to support a fundraising effort.

The Neurological Foundation and University of Otago are fundraising for a centre of academic excellence in neurosurgery at the university; the head of the research unit would work as a third neurosurgeon at Dunedin Hospital.