Clinical Transformation Group co-leader Dr Sheila Barnett spoke in the Octagon to the tens of thousands of people at the march for the new hospital on Saturday.
She told the crowd she was "shocked" at the government’s announcement last week that it planned to either scale down the project, or ditch it in favour of retrofitting the present hospital site.
"I also lead the group of hospital staff and the people from the community who have provided the clinical advice to the design of the new Dunedin hospital, so we are embedded in this project.
"Our team have worked for seven years balancing busy clinical jobs, providing common-sense clinical input, and many of us have lived and breathed this project.
"There has been a lot of give and take, but the final design we had was balanced, and it reflected what the southern region would need in the decades ahead.
"I know that what we have designed would have worked."
Dr Barnett said more than 500 clinicians provided input on the design.
"We don’t know yet what the next few months will look like, but we will be working hard with our colleagues, again, to put the best advice forward that we can."
Dr Barnett was one of several speakers who expressed their concern and anger about the government’s plans on Saturday.
Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich said the people of the South had spoken with one voice and now the government needed to listen.
"This is no longer a Dunedin issue or even a southern issue. This is now a national issue, shining a spotlight on the government’s health funding and priorities — and they can’t simply ignore us."
New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation (NZNO) delegate Linda Smillie told the crowd in Dunedin the downgrade would cause patient deaths and government ministers and southern MPs would have to bear the responsibility for that.
"This will result in patient deaths. There’s no ifs, buts or maybes. It will just be a simple matter of time when that happens. I want it today to be very clear on whose shoulders the responsibility for that sits."
NZNO president Anne Daniels challenged the government to produce evidence that the bill for the hospital could blow out to $3 billion.
"We are standing up against divide and rule based on this misinformation.
"We are told that other regional hospitals’ upgrades will miss out if Dunedin gets the hospital. Even the regions don’t accept this."
Clutha District Mayor Bryan Cadogan said the government’s new proposal was akin to asking the "Formula One" nurses and clinicians to drive a "Morris Minor" system.
"The South has been cheated."Former Labour Cabinet minister Pete Hodgson, who previously oversaw the construction of the new Dunedin hospital, said he had read the independent report that informed Health Minister Dr Shane Reti and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop’s announcement that building the new hospital to spec would cost $3b.
"The report does not say that, because it is not true.
"[Author Robert Rust] says that someone has bolted on to the project north of $300 million worth of refurbishing of an abandoned building, when no-one knows to whom which bits of that building might be sold or leased for what purpose.
"But ministers have instead used that criticism to pump the cost up towards $3b ... I am calling them out now, loud and clear, for their deceit."
Not having enough money for hospitals was "a political choice", Mr Hodgson said.
Mr Bishop told the ODT the figures sprang from a total appropriation of $1.88b.
"Recent cost estimates came in several hundred million dollars over that appropriation.
"All up, approaching $3b. I can’t go into further detail at this stage due to commercial sensitivity."
Former head of Dunedin Hospital’s emergency department Dr John Chambers said the whole process had been "exhausting".
"So please, politicians and officials in Wellington, listen to the people of Dunedin and the South.
"Stop seeking advice from people who are not clinicians. Listen to your own experts and get that hospital built and fully staffed when it opens in five years’ time," Dr Chambers said.
Māori Medical Students’ Association officer Piri Tohu-Hapati told the crowd the government had "made a promise" to build the hospital to the original specifications.
"To stall or cut corners is to be complicit in preventable deaths and long-term suffering," he said.
"Without a world-class teaching facility we are sending a clear message to our venerable trainees that we don’t value their education, their future contributions or the health of the communities we will serve. We will lose them."
