My focus has changed when travelling around, to the amusement of my family. Instead of viewing the sights, I find myself looking at the infrastructure and boring things like stormwater or the design and layout of towns — even the type of fall protection on playgrounds.
One thing that has taken me by surprise this time around, though, is I think there are more road cones in Invercargill at the moment!
Reflecting on the Dunedin hospital situation, I found myself pondering how much the iconic Sky Tower cost to build. I remembered it being built in 1997, but couldn’t remember its price.
I was pleasantly surprised. It took two years and nine months and came in at $85million (about $161million today).
While it’s not quite comparing apples with apples — even if the Sky Tower does look like a big needle — it doesn’t exactly paint the Dunedin hospital project in a good light.
I read recently that by February 2023, $51.4million had been spent on consultancy fees for the hospital build.
This amount is on top of the people working on the project within Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ).
It is predominantly people’s time, so let’s put it into hours at, say, a rate of $200 per hour. We are talking about 257,000 hours. My brain struggles to fathom that.
We are not getting it right in terms of how we go about some of these larger projects. That $51.4million in 1997 would have built about a third of the Sky Tower — and I am damn sure in 2023 it could have built a lot of hospital.
The clinicians know what is needed.
They are our best consultants and they are already being paid by HNZ.
This shouldn’t be so hard and it’s about time New Zealand tried a different approach.
— Southland District Mayor Rob Scott
