The case, released late on Friday, several days after the government announced it would approve the new medical school, said over 16 years from 2026 to 2042 the total cost of medical education at Waikato, including capital costs that include building a new school, would be $9.1 billion.
This included annual total costs of $492 million, compared with the option of increasing the existing medical school intake of $537m, or a specialised rural medical training programme jointly delivered by the existing medical schools at $547m.
But University of Otago pro-vice-chancellor health sciences associate professor Megan Gibbons said the university was disappointed with the business case used to make a final decision about future medical training in New Zealand.
"We agree with University of Auckland dean of medical and health sciences professor Warwick Bagg regarding a business case that contains a number of obvious flaws including significant analysis gaps and some speculative assumptions."
Prof Bagg told The New Zealand Herald he was "deeply concerned" by the business case, which seemed to have a predetermined outcome: to favour the Waikato medical school proposal the National Party took to the last election.
Some of these assumptions included the fact the cost of training the students and the modelling made unfair and inaccurate assumptions about the existing two medical schools that put them at a disadvantage.
The business case has come under criticism from Labour MP for Dunedin Rachel Brooking, who said it had been "written with an outcome in mind", and the "flawed" business case would have consequences for the Otago Medical School: "those are difficult to predict exactly".
In her statement, Assoc Prof Gibbons said the university was "proud of our 150 years of delivering medical education and training at sites all around New Zealand, particularly in our clinical schools in Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington and in communities throughout New Zealand".
"We are confident that our quality programmes will continue to deliver the best graduates possible.
"We will keep evolving and developing our programmes.
"This includes continuing our long-standing commitment to partnering with local hospitals, GPs and communities to deliver training and placements in regional and rural New Zealand."
Former Otago University academic Prof Robin Gauld, now executive dean of Bond Business School at Bond University in Queensland, said the differences between the three options were "so infinitesimal" that Waikato could potentially carry the greatest risk.
"It could end up being that Waikato will actually be much more expensive than was going to be apparent right now when this decision was taken.
"And some of the challenges, such as getting all the clinical placements lined up, which they admit in the business case will be challenging, could be more challenging than anticipated."
The first expected intake of students at Waikato was 120 in 2028.
"So, they’re going to be relying on quite a bit of altruism and goodwill to get all the placements lined up."
This was potentially a mega-project, he said.
"So, I think like any grand project, such as the new Dunedin hospital, there’s a lot more in this than you could just read out of a business case.
"There’s a heck of a lot more to it. It’s going to be much, much more complex.
"It’s going to be pretty important that they stick to what they’ve said they are trying to do, which is set up a graduate-entry-only medical school, and one that’s focused on general practice and primary care."
