Mac Gardner, 82, spent more than $7000 of his own money to advertise in Allied Press publications and on a giant billboard in Wellington.
The billboard criticises Labour leader and former prime minister Chris Hipkins for being "incompetent" and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for being "untrustworthy" when it came to running the new Dunedin hospital project.
"It’s very much a plague on both their houses," Dr Gardner said.
"I’m being very even-handed."
"If Labour had proceeded with reasonable speed or finesse from the start date, then the whole thing would have been embedded in, whatever National did or didn’t do.
"It would have been already embedded in place."
This did not let National off the hook, Dr Gardner said.
He believed they broke their promise to build the hospital to the specifications promised in the 2021 detailed business case.
"I thought National was coming in as a knight in shining armour and going to save the hospital, but then they turned around and said, ‘Oops, no, we might even go back to the old hospital’.
Dr Gardner said such were the delays, he did not envision the hospital to be built "before I’m gone" — in April last year, he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer — and he was worried about the constant cuts to the original detailed business case, which was the "bare minimum" in the first place.
"I felt if I didn’t do something to draw attention to them then they wouldn’t keep it in the news."
In late January, newly appointed Health Minister Simeon Brown announced after months of delays that the government would proceed with a scaled-back version of the new Dunedin hospital at the former Cadbury’s site for $1.88 billion.
The Dunedin City Council has been approached for comment.
