Francisco Hernandez’s comments come after documents released under the Official Information Act showed officials providing regular updates to Health Minister Dr Shane Reti about progress on the proposed third medical school based at the University of Waikato in Hamilton.
In July, Otago and Auckland Universities presented the government with a report by PwC outlining their concerns about the proposed third medical school, as well as the built-in advantages of the existing medical schools.
But later that month, documents showed Dr Reti’s advisers were not convinced by the report.
"The report provides a general overview of the current status of medical education in New Zealand and a high-level option definition and appraisal.
"While the report clearly outlines key issues from the current tertiary institutes’ perspective, it does not provide detailed costs and benefits of the options it considers," they said.
"This means that the report will not significantly impact the content or approach to the independent cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the ministry [of Health] or the proposed business case."
Mr Hernandez said he was "alarmed" the government would "bulldoze" ahead in such a fashion.
"The government appears to have completely disregarded the proposals from Otago and Auckland."
Dr Reti should have ensured the "independent" cost-benefit analysis also incorporated the very obvious hypotheses that they posed, Mr Hernandez said.
"Railroading the independent report to only consider options scoped by the government makes it seem like they’ve already predetermined the answers they want.
"If the government goes ahead with the proposed Waikato medical school on the basis of this report, it will be another kick in the guts to the South."
Otago Medical School acting dean Prof Tim Wilkinson said yesterday it was never intended to present a full cost-benefit analysis, given this was what the government indicated it would undertake.
"However, the report very clearly shows that it will cost significantly more to establish a new medical school.
"The report affirms our view that it would be more effective for both Otago and Auckland medical schools to be able to increase the number of students they train each year ... . To accommodate new students, we would largely reconfigure use of existing facilities."
Prof Wilkinson said Otago had repeatedly told the government it could increase its intake from 302 to 348 students without the need for extra infrastructure from as early as next year.
"Looking ahead, we could raise our annual intake to 450 students from 2027."
Meanwhile, less than a fortnight after the decision to discard the PwC report, advisers told Dr Reti they were developing a communications plan for the third medical school proposal.
They said the Ministry of Health was progressing planning for the delivery of the detailed business case "in preparation for Cabinet agreeing to proceed to develop the case".
The ministry will lead this but commission specific areas of work, such as a clinical placement plan or the design of the curriculum, to Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora and the University of Waikato.
"Work to deliver the case will need to start immediately after the Cabinet decision, in order to deliver to Cabinet in quarter 1, 2025."
However, the advice also said agencies had noted the risks around "tight timeframes to deliver the level of work required" for a case, including the time needed to validate costings, confirm assumptions and refine the design of the programme.
The Otago Daily Times has previously discovered the Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Education advised Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds on August 2 this year they had little confidence in a cost-benefit analysis of the project that relied on "untested assumptions", had "significant gaps" in financial data and did not fully consider alternative options.
But on September 28, Dr Reti called the cost-benefit analysis "encouraging" and progressed the project to the detailed business case stage, where it remains.
When asked about Mr Hernandez’s comments yesterday, Dr Reti was unrepentant.
"The Green Party should know that New Zealand urgently needs to grow its medical workforce and it’s disappointing Mr Hernandez can’t say anything supportive in that regard.
"As minister, I’ve previously said that we very much value the work of the Otago and Auckland medical schools. That doesn’t change.
"We are presently working through a robust cost-benefit analysis for a potential third school in Waikato to continue to grow the number of New Zealand-trained and culturally competent doctors."
