The new hospital announced in January will open with 351 inpatient beds — 59 fewer than originally proposed, but with capacity to expand to 404 beds over time.
Ahead of the decision to scale back the number of beds, the government’s chief infrastructure officer Jeremy Holman briefed then-health minister Shane Reti about the project.
This would lead to longer ED waiting times and affect elective surgery targets, Mr Holman said.
The government paused the new Dunedin hospital project in September to choose between either refitting the existing hospital or a scaled-back version of the inpatients’ building.
Mr Holman also said refitting the existing hospital would produce more beds in the early stages of the development, but the project would take longer and have far more disruptions, not least because the option had not been well-planned.
In late December, health officials recommended a scaled-back inpatients building at the Cadbury’s site.
Dr Reti was sacked as health minister in January and the newly appointed minister, Simeon Brown, made the announcement the government would go ahead with the new inpatients building later that month.
Former head of the emergency department Dr John Chambers said it was "disappointing" officials appeared to be aware the government would be delivering less than what was originally promised.
"We deserve better, don't we?"
Upon reading the documents — which were released under the Official Information Act — Dr Chambers was more concerned with what was "left out" or redacted.
"The monthly reports are basically stagnant, but stacked with extreme risks.
"All in all slow progress, and a fear is that the situation in Dunedin will lose focus as the minister and Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora are distracted by the disastrous staffing and waiting list issues in other former DHBs."
Health officials had classed nearly every aspect of the project as a high or "extreme" risk
while the project was paused from September last year to January this year.
There were also monthly "escalation" costs of $3.4m from the period where the inpatients building project remained inactive from September.
In September, more than 35,000 people marched in Dunedin to urge the government to push ahead with the new hospital as promised.
Officials appeared to notice this and told Dr Reti in November there was an "extreme risk" of "community discord" and "clinical discord", and "any change to existing approved plans may result in clinical staff withholding approvals and or slowing the redesign process".
