Hospital decision expected

Health Minister Simeon Brown. PHOTO: ODT FILES
Health Minister Simeon Brown. PHOTO: ODT FILES
The future of the beleaguered Dunedin hospital build could be revealed today.

A spokesman for Health Minister Simeon Brown yesterday confirmed the minister would be visiting the city today and would make an announcement at 11.40am. 

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Several protesters have gathered in the central city to voice their demand that the government build "the hospital that was promised to us", one of the protesters, Sam Bosshard, said.

Labour's Taieri MP Ingrid Leary this morning said she expected there would be a "good announcement", and that the sixth floor of the building would be cold-shelled.

Sources told the Otago Daily Times last year level 6 of the new inpatient building could be scrapped, along with psychogeriatric beds earmarked for the floor.

Protesters await the arrival of Health Minister Simeon Brown on Friday morning. Photo: Peter...
Protesters await the arrival of Health Minister Simeon Brown on Friday morning. Photo: Peter McIntosh
"If we get the full building including a shelled-sixth floor — as per the indications — then full credit to the people of Dunedin and the lower South for coming together and activating so strongly. This shows what people power can achieve," Ms Leary told RNZ.

"Today’s announcement is expected to be as good as we could get in the circumstances, although it certainly won’t reflect the National government’s pre-election promises.

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"It’s likely to be good news in the sense it future-proofs the building as the population grows, and it’s certainly infinitely better than a refurbished ailing ward block which had been mooted and would have been dangerous and completely unworkable."

She said that how the government came to make such a "massive u-turn after digging in against common sense for so long will all come out in the wash".

Ms Leary said she was thankful for the medical staff at the hospital who "stuck to their guns" about the need to make the building safer.

Labour's Ingrid Leary questions if the Suicide Prevention Office is really staying open when it...
Labour's Ingrid Leary. File photo
"It’s a shame the National government threw former health minister Dr Shane Reti under the bus to achieve this outcome when there was no need to do so."

Former Labour health minister and hospital campaigner Pete Hodgson, who previously chaired a governance committee for the hospital build, said the people of the South, when they marched for the hospital last year, had given "35,000 reasons to be grateful" if it was announced by Mr Brown today that the hospital was going ahead. 

His hope was that the region would be delivered the "least worst option"  of a new build tertiary in-patient building, with any savings still meaning clinical requirements can be met, and if that happened "we should go with it". 

He also called for no more delays to the build, to ensure no more wasted time or money. 

"Should the government decide to proceed with the in-patient building this must be the last ever review. The building has long since reached the point of no return and there are no more savings to be made because delay will always cost more than any potential savings," Mr Hodgson said. 

An estimated 35,000 people including medics and patients marched through Dunedin's streets in September calling on the government to  build the new Dunedin hospital as planned after years of delays and concerns about the increasingly creaking state of the existing hospital. 

Work on the site of the proposed inpatient building, currently a field of piles on the former Cadbury site, was halted after former health minister Dr Shane Reti and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop paused the build last year.

The ministers then began a review of the planned build, citing spiralling costs.

They said the build would be scaled back or dumped in favour of a refurbishment of the existing and ailing Ward Block, sparking the march. 

It is understood Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) has investigated both options, and a new build remains the favoured alternative. 

Five consultancy firms have been involved in the project's latest review, at a cost of more than $307,000.

The current budget for the new hospital is $1.88billion. In 2017, the previous national government made an election promise to build the hospital by 2027 for $1.4b, describing the project as "big and exciting".

Then Prime Minister  Bill English said at the time a city-centre build was "economically efficient" and a public private partnership (PPP) funding model was a consideration.

mary.williams@odt.co.nz 

 

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