The bombshell announcement that plans for the hospital had been ripped up was made by Health Minister Dr Shane Reti and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop yesterday, which has led to anger among the Dunedin community.
Dr Reti said the main inpatient building could be drastically scaled back or dumped altogether in favour of a "staged development" on the old hospital site.
He said the government was seeking advice on two options for delivering the "problematic and poorly-managed project" after indications to budget could blow out to $3billion.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists chief executive Sarah Dalton said yesterday’s announcement was "disappointing, but not necessarily surprising".
"There seems to be a trend of short-term thinking and rhetoric."
It felt as if "all the hard work and research by clinicians had been torn up" by yesterday’s announcements, she said.
"It’s really difficult to have the conversations we need to have about healthcare if announcements like this go ahead.
"The announcement seemingly goes against the very principles of Health NZ Te Whatu Ora’s establishment, which was all about delivering the right care for everyone."
"A robust public hospital system is essential not only for the health of our community but also for providing our students with the hands-on experience necessary to excel in their professions," Mr Robertson said.
It would continue to work with HNZ to identify how to support the teaching, learning and training requirements of both organisations.
"We urge the government to work collaboratively with all key stakeholders to ensure that Dunedin remains a centre of excellence for healthcare education and service delivery."
New Zealand Nurses Organisation Dunedin delegate Linda Smillie was outraged and "gutted" for the patients and staff of Dunedin Hospital as these decisions "will negatively impact patient care".
"The government knows the cost of infrastructure projects always blow out because of rising building costs. This is cost-cutting by stealth. The government must find the additional funding needed to build this much-needed health facility," she said.
"If the government can find $3billion to give to landlords and $216million for tobacco companies, they can find the additional funding needed to build the new Dunedin hospital."
She urged Dunedin residents to join them and march tomorrow.
Dunedin MP Rachel Brooking said the city and the South had been "short-changed" by the government.
"Rather than getting on ahead with a new hospital, they’ve been sitting on their hands, waiting for prices to go up so they can blame it on the previous government."
Ms Brooking said the government was "pitting Dunedin and the South against every other region".
"It’s tiring and very cynical politics."
Asked if the previous Labour government could have done more to keep costs under control for the project, she said it was always going to be a challenge.
"In an old city with a lot of hills, there is not an abundance of flat uncontaminated land waiting for a new hospital to be built on.
"The clinicians and the people of Dunedin always supported a new building."
It showed though that the Infrastructure Minister — and the Infrastructure Commission — was clearly in the driver’s seat for "what’s to happen to our health services", not the Health Minister.
Earlier this year, the Cabinet commissioned a one-off independent review into the project which was undertaken by independent expert Robert Rust, former chief executive of Health Infrastructure New South Wales.
The report was released yesterday.
It was "a bit scary" the Rust Report appeared to be so influential, Dr Chambers said.
The report itself was "very lengthy, it’s very wordy and it’s quite repetitive".
"Whist it was pleasing to get to directly question the minister today, many concerns still remain unanswered," Mr Taylor said.
"Clearly, the pathology lab build is included in the $400m ancillary costs and the minister totally acknowledged that the laboratory will be on the hospital precinct and is essential to the Dunedin hospital rebuild.
"He was, like all of us, disappointed that the original hospital rebuild plans did not include a fit-for-purpose pathology lab.
"How the pathology building will be funded and actually built was expected to come out by the end of the year. The worry as always is the delays end up costing more and potentially valuable time is being lost ...
"I reiterate, do it once, and do it properly."
