Previous budget escalations led to a push for $90 million in savings, which ended in design changes and the reduction of some services.
Te Whatu Ora this afternoon gave a briefing to media about the new Dunedin Hospital project where they emphasised the savings were largely made by using more efficient design methods, rather than cutting clinical capacity.
Te Whatu Ora director of delivery Monique Fowler said she could not provide any confidence that rising construction costs would not push up the price tag from $1.58 billion.
"It's a cost estimate, until we get the final numbers in nobody can give you that confidence."
The original push for $90 million of savings was caused by rising costs.
New Dunedin Hospital programme director Bridget Dickson said during the redesign, the decision was made to drop some of the more expensive design features and "a square and more efficient building" was now planned.
Most of the changes to the design happened in the first few floors, as the inpatient building was "restacked" through the redesign process, she said.
A mana whenua space was dropped to the ground floor.
A "void" in the middle of the building, originally planned for all 10 floors was reconfigured closer to the ground so that a large part of the void in the first three floors had been reclaimed.
On the first floor the "red bridge" for staff and patients to cross between the inpatient and outpatient buildings was retained, but the "blue bridge" for the public was dropped.
It was designed in such a way that it could be "reinstated into the future".
On the higher floors nearly all of the original design was retained.
