Dunedin hospital master site plan delayed

Dunedin's hospital rebuild planning is ramping up as the Ministry of Health (MoH) employs a five-member project management team.

MoH deputy director-general of district health board performance, support and infrastructure Stephen O'Keefe said a permanent project team was now in place for the $1.4billion project.

The team included a project director, and employees in charge of commercial and legal aspects, project management, project co-ordination and land procurement.

``Those are the people that are 100% involved in the project at this phase,'' Mr O'Keefe said.

The team was supported by other areas of the ministry, and had been established ``relatively recently''.

Three had been employed since the start of October, but had been transferred from the Ministry of Justice, and had been involved beforehand part-time.

Mr O'Keefe said more people would be employed, though the timing of that depended on the scale of the work.

The five were on fixed-term contracts, two of them based in Dunedin and three in Wellington.

Southern Partnership Group chairman Pete Hodgson said a master site plan for the new hospital due at the end of October had been delayed by two weeks.

The plan that considered everything in and around the hospital, such as where buildings would go, how they would link and connect to the University of Otago, was now due mid-next month.

Mr Hodgson would not say why there was a delay, but said it was ``understandable and acceptable''.

david.loughrey@odt.co.nz

 

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