Christmas has arrived early at Parliament, with a posse of 20 Santas bringing their own southern wish list to the capital.
"We want the southern hospital. That's all we want for Christmas," one Santa said.
Another responded, "ho ho ho" to RNZ's questions, before the group shouted "just the hospital" when asked if it had anything else on its wish list.
The stunt was part of the 'Save our Southern Hospital' campaign for the coalition to deliver a tertiary care level hospital in Dunedin.
National promised to finish the new Dunedin hospital while on the election campaign last year, before announcing it would have to downgrade or scale back plans due to costs.
It prompted public backlash, with more than 30,000 people marching in the streets of Dunedin in September to protest the decision.
Labour MP for Dunedin Rachel Brooking met the Santas outside Parliament today and said the hospital was an important issue for southerners.
"It just matters so much to the people in Dunedin. We had that protest with 35,000 people and it's not stopped. We haven't heard anything more from the government.
"We've heard from the Labour Party that we'd absolutely rebuild it, as we promised before the election, but it's this government that's reneging on those promises."
Brooking said it was "hugely frustrating" that National had walked away from its election campaign promise.
"It's so important that it's a tertiary teaching hospital. We've got the med school there, all of the doctors are trained there, but also dentists and physios and nurses at the polytech as well.
"So it really needs to be a great hospital for Dunedin, for the university and for the wider southern region so that all the difficult things that can't be done on your secondary hospitals can be done in Dunedin, rather than going to Christchurch because that's the only other option."
In a media release on the Santa stunt, New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) President Anne Daniels said there was just one item on the Christmas list this year.
"We just want what was promised - a fit-for-purpose, future-proofed, tertiary care level hospital to meet the needs of the South.
"We're not asking for anything expensive or extravagant: the Southern Hospital is comparable in size to the new Adelaide Women's and Children's hospital in Australia, which has a budget of NZ$3.5 billion."
Daniels said services and costs had been refined over the last seven years and the biggest cost to the project - estimated to be $110,000 per day - was delay.
"A redesign now is a false economy."
The visit from Santas comes after the NZNO presented a petition to Parliament to roll back its cuts to the new Dunedin hospital.
Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich said the level of public engagement with the issue demonstrates the depth of feeling about the hospital.
"We are all taxpayers and we all want value for money, but this hospital is in danger of being 'value managed' into oblivion. The government has suggested radically changing the plans for the new hospital or retrofitting the old hospital, which is infamous for its concrete cancer, asbestos and leaks.
"This government still has time to keep their hospital promise to build it once and build it right."
