Government ministers are remaining tight-lipped over when it will make an announcement about the new Dunedin hospital.
Instead, there will be a scaled-down inpatients building on the former Cadbury’s site, or a retrofit of the existing hospital.
The plans are now sitting with Health Minister Shane Reti and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop.
A spokeswoman for Dr Reti said yesterday they had "no further updates to provide" when asked when the advice from HNZ about the new hospital project would be released and when the ministers would make an announcement about the project.
The ministers had set the budget for the new project at $1.88 billion, but former Labour cabinet minister Pete Hodgson, who oversaw the early stages of the project, said it was highly unlikely that the project would come within the budget.
"The increase in the new Dunedin hospital’s costs will have hit $10 million by Christmas.
"That figure is due to inflation alone. It does not include the costs of redesign. It does not include the costs of downtime.
"It does not include the costs of keeping the lights on in the existing hospital."
The delaying of the project had been "an absurdity from start to finish", Mr Hodgson said.
"Although the ministers’ intervention should never have occurred back in late September, the sooner it's over with, the better."
Shortly after the government made the announcement it was scaling back the new hospital, more than 35,000 marched in protest.
