Uncertainty remains over services to be provided

Southerners still do not know what services will be offered in the new Dunedin hospital, after another hiccup in the release of the detailed business case for the $1.47 billion project.

Earlier this week, the office of Health Minister Andrew Little released to the Otago Daily Times some preliminary details of the much delayed business case, which was finally signed off by the Cabinet last month after more than a year of delays.

The size of the new hospital has been confirmed as having 421 beds, fewer than envisaged in the 2019 master site plan for the facility.

The 2019 document left undecided whether several services would be provided in the new hospital or elsewhere, and the ODT understands there has been much heated discussion since at the detailed business case stage on what would remain in or out of the hospital.

That information remains unknown as the document, which was expected to be unveiled yesterday, has still not been put online.

In March, in answer to a written parliamentary question, Dunedin National list MP Michael Woodhouse was told by Mr Little that there would be 474 beds in the new hospital.

Yesterday, Mr Woodhouse said the newly released numbers of beds and floors in the new hospital showed that the Treasury had trumped clinicians in their long-running dispute about the size of the buildings.

"For the last four years, Treasury and the Ministry of Health have been arguing and this shows that Treasury won," he said.

"If we have lost something like two-three floors, that is a significant reduction from what clinicians and experts believed was required, and the dollar has got in the way of that."

Mr Woodhouse, a former private hospital chief executive, doubted whether the hospital would meet its new $1.47billion budget, given inflation in construction costs and the project having originally being costed at $1.4billion three years ago.

He also questioned whether the new building could meet the demand of current southern patient numbers, let alone future requirements.

"I worry that we might not get any more beds, despite population growth and the ability of medical technology to do so much more," Mr Woodhouse said.

"We need to make the existing operating bed capacity and operating theatre capacity larger just to do the same thing, and I look at these numbers and think that will be difficult."

Dunedin School of Medicine general practice department head Dr Carol Atmore said the hospital could not be thought of in isolation from the whole health system.

"For it to be successful, the new hospital needs to have that integration and interface between it and primary care and the community sector functioning well, and we still have time to get that sorted but we will need to be focused on that."

Dr Atmore said the Government’s planned reform of health sector management needed to retain the focus on that requirement which had been committed to by the Southern District Health Board and WellSouth primary health organisation.

"The welfare of the patient is what we need to remain focused on .. it should be about the right care at the time, in the right place, from the right person."

mike.houlahan@odt.co.nz