Kia ora Grey Power Eastern Southland
I’m Kathryn from Dunedin City Council.
We need your support to ensure that the people of the South get the hospital they were promised. While the government’s goal is to save money on the hospital build it will be our communities who pay.
The new Dunedin Hospital has been designed in conjunction with over 100 clinical staff, to ensure that it is fit for purpose and scaled to population of the region. The government is suggesting that it is expensive or extravagant. The hospital design includes 410 overnight beds, 53 ED beds and 15 operating theatres. By contrast, the new Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Australia will have 414 beds, 43 ED beds and 14 operating theatres, and has a budget of NZ$3.5B which is considered to be value for money.
The options that the government have presented include retrofitting the old hospital and downsizing the newly designed hospital. Neither of the options will service our Southern population of 350,000. Downsizing the hospital could create clinical risks, and risk patient safety as well as creating capacity issues. Retrofitting the old hospital will be more expensive, more disruptive, and take years longer. The current hospital also has structural issues and would be unusable in the event of a serious earthquake.
Hospitals are complex buildings. Changing the design involves engineers, designers, architects and consultants and costs millions. It’s feasible that it could cost as much to downscale the new hospital as it would to build it as promised due to design, engineering, legal and compliance fees. All the while the cost of delaying the project continues to mount at an estimated $110,000 per day.*
In a recent open letter to the government over 40 medical professionals from multiple specialities stated that an aging population with increasingly complex needs means the region needs a highly functional modern and resilient hospital.
A hospital that is fit for purpose for generations to come is critical to the health and wellbeing of the people of the South. For this reason we need your help to ensure that it is fit for purpose and to ensure they build it once and build it right.Â
What can you do to help.Â
- Sign a digital postcard to the ministers here
- Donate to the campaign here
- Join the Save Our Southern Hospital Facebook page here
- Write to or email Rt Hon Winston Peters. You can find his contact details here
- Write to or email Hon Shane Jones. You can find his contact details here
Want to do more? Contact the Save our South Hospital team at soshospital@dcc.govt.nz
*Source: ODT 14/10/24 ‘Costs could rise $10m per quarter: economist’