The new Dunedin hospital will meet the needs of the South and is the "best we could have hoped for", the leading clinician on the project says.
Clinical Transformation Group lead Sheila Barnett provided clinical advice on the project to Te Whatu Ora Health NZ.
Previously, Dr Barnett had publicly expressed concern the options the government were deliberating over would fall "far short of the original new Dunedin hospital".
However, she said yesterday’s outcome was the "best we could have hoped for, given the decisions so far, and the budget restrictions in place".
Dr Barnett was "particularly pleased" the sixth floor of the building, which had been on the chopping block, had been retained and she was now confident the building would be "clinically robust".
"We did not have that confidence with the other options that have been on the table in the past four months.
"The overarching structure, relationship of departments, efficient movements of patients and staff is unchanged. It remains built to Australasian Health Facility Guidelines and is well future-proofed."
The hospital will have 351 beds with the ability to scale up to 404 - the original design had 398 beds on opening.
It also keeps the 11 floors of the original design.
In September, the government said it was considering either a scaled-down version or a refit of the existing Dunedin Hospital.
It has set a budget of $1.88 billion.
It is expected the building will be complete by 2031 if construction gets under way this year.
Dr Barnett was pleased much of the previous designs had been retained.
"The clinical flows and relationships have been preserved, meaning we can staff it and run it safely and efficiently.
"The number of floors is preserved, so the building can still reach its full potential."
"We, as a group, don't make the changes but we advised on their impacts and consequences.
"We are comfortable with the overall hospital's design and future capacity and feel the design team have done a genuinely good job with the task they were given."
She believed many of the savings were "reasonable".
"One strategy has been to fit areas out as they're needed, not all at once on opening. This is reasonable so long as it matches the need at that time."
She said another strategy had been to combine some departments, sharing spaces like reception or recovery areas.
"Again, this has been done successfully elsewhere but is going to need redesign.
"Within those departments that have been combined, there may be some loss of space but we don't yet know what this will look like.
"It's likely that some colleagues will feel that their area or service is not as ideally designed or sized as it would have been in the original design."
In terms of types of beds, there were likely to be fewer mental health beds for the elderly than originally planned.
"There will need to be more work to develop contemporary models of care for this service."
"Look, we're really disappointed at the way this hospital build has been used as a political football.
"It's cost time and money that we can ill afford."
New Zealand Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels called the reduction of beds "fiscally criminal".
She also said it was a sign other regions would not get the hospitals they deserved.
"Fewer beds also means fewer jobs for nurses as HNZ will resource this hospital based on bed numbers."
Former head of the Dunedin Hospital emergency department Dr John Chambers said it was a "significant cut" to the number of beds in the hospital.
"I'm not sure how they've made that decision or what they've based it on. They're obviously paying a lot of money for all these reports."
It represented a downsizing of the hospital from what was originally planned, which was "disappointing".
