Finally getting on with this in an election year would be expected to have cemented in the support voters usually give to Labour in Dunedin.
But instead there is a widespread and concerted campaign against how it is being carried out.
The government has its work cut out when it embarks on a building project.
While it used to have the Ministry of Works it now appears to have little institutional knowledge of construction. It does manage to build roads and bridges and the like, but not so often buildings.
The projects it delivers best are those which are not politicised on the way through.
In the private sector the builder will be creating a building for someone else to occupy.
There will be rough estimates around the costs of repurposing current buildings. If a new build seems better value for money there will be specifications, a quote and various negotiations around whether the specifications will be lowered to meet the cost.
The quote may have some contingencies in it for unforeseen circumstances. A site will be chosen early on, but may change if it turns out not to be suitable or cost effective.
Once the site and building costs are sorted the changes will only be those related to unforeseen issues which have been tagged in the contract.
For example, the cost of the steel may be subject to international issues. With the government it all starts as a press release. The government says it will build a fabulous future-proofed facility to meet the needs of ourselves and our children and grandchildren.
They have just announced another new hospital in Hawke’s Bay, for example; another election press release.
There is no fun publicity about looking at the cost of repurposing the existing hospital to meet present and future needs.
Imagine the lack of interest we would have for someone with a bright orange hard hat on holding a piece of Gib board under a headline of "we really will fix the ventilation and the Accident and Emergency department".
Here, once the press release publicity died down, the public argued around where it should be and the most noisy won.
There appears to have been no input from those who know about costs and needs, which in our case might have taken us down the route of building at Wakari.
After the next press release saying the hospital is being built on the new site the important work was to have the site looking like something is happening for the election this year. Late last year when the inevitable happened and the still estimates for the build had risen over $200m, the government took $90m out of the proposed costs by removing some of the beds, some operating theatres, reducing the MRI scanners to two and saying the PET scanner will be installed later.
The beds to be cut were for mental health services for older people.
These cuts were strenuously opposed. No-one thought these were merely nice to have parts of the new hospital. No-one had faith that there will be more money any time soon to put the missing bits back later.
That a private PET scanner may be being built sometime is cold comfort to those wanting publicly funded healthcare.
A campaign started, supported particularly by the ODT and the Dunedin City Council with the "You Save We Pay" headline.
Because the cuts were political, Labour MP Rachel Brooking felt the need to describe the DCC as "intellectually lazy" for wanting the build to happen as proposed.
National MP Michael Woodhouse became popular for supporting the build going ahead without cuts.
Now with the election cycle in full swing we have had some movement in reinstating bits that have been lost out of the initial proposal.
Better use of money may have happened if serious thought was given to finding a contractor who could make the current hospital fit for purpose with whatever alterations were necessary.
This should have been based on the services which were in the original hospital proposal. Experts should have decided if a new site would have been better, based on clear criteria such as cost effectiveness and parking. In any case it should be delivered as initially proposed.
Hospitals do not need to be part of the political process.
They could be treated like roads and bridges once the decision to sort out the issues about infrastructure that is not meeting needs is sorted.
Once the decisions are made the building should happen as contracted.
Get the experts in. Get the politicians out.
Politicians’ only role should be to have the right people advise on what should be provided and hold the contractors accountable for building what was specified at a reasonable cost.
- Hilary Calvert is a former Otago regional councillor, MP and DCC councillor.
