In September, the same day an estimated 35,000 people turned out in Dunedin to protest about feared cuts to the Dunedin Hospital rebuild and thousands also protested in Westport about the downgrading of their health services, the government announced its initial cost-benefit analysis of the proposal provided confidence to progress to the next stage.
That involves making a full business case for a new school at the University of Waikato before any final decisions are made.
It might be further ahead by now if it were not for the Act New Zealand/National coalition agreement which states "full cost-benefit analysis must be presented before any binding agreement is made" on the proposal.
When he announced the move towards the full business case, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti said the initial cost-benefit analysis was encouraging, but there was "still a significant amount of material to be considered and assumptions to be tested around this major project".
It has now been revealed through our reporting that two months before this announcement, the government knew there were serious concerns about the project which is to focus on training general practitioners and rural doctors.
The Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Education told Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds they had little confidence in a cost-benefit analysis of the project that relied on untested assumptions, had "significant gaps" in financial data and did not fully consider alternative options.
According to the memorandum of understanding between the university and the government, the aim is to have the initial intake of 120 students in January 2027.
Ms Simmonds was told the cost-benefit analysis needed more work. Assumptions it was based on — including costs for building the school and delivering the programme and that there would be more graduates who went on to work in general and rural practice — were highly sensitive to change.
Not exactly encouraging, then.
It was also pointed out alternative options not fully considered included the proposal from the existing medical schools which outlined how they could scale up to turn out more doctors more quickly than the third school and for less money. (The government contribution to establishing the third school is estimated at about $300 million.)
The existing schools say they could train hundreds more doctors without extra capital spending, but it would require the government raising their annual intake quotas.
If there is concern such extra places would not necessarily boost general practitioner numbers and those practising in rural areas, surely the government could call the tune by tagging funding to those specialties.
In his announcement in late September about the move to the business case for the third school, Dr Reti said "we know we need to prioritise increasing the number of homegrown health professionals as a top priority to make sure all New Zealanders have timely access to quality healthcare".
However, the reality, in terms of doctor training, does not match that rhetoric.
On the campaign trail, National promised it would increase trainee doctor places by 50 but only funded half that in this year’s Budget.
Putting the third medical school proposal ahead of what the two existing schools have proposed would not fit the mantra home-growing health professionals is top priority, either.
It is unclear when the business case is expected to be completed. Dr Reti has said it will be thorough and expected to "take some time".
We would be encouraged if the government shelved this flimsy pork barrel folly as soon as possible, citing the cost.
Giving it the green light will merely provide ammunition for the many voters next election who may have a grievance about health spending cuts.
