And so during a question-and-answer period in a public update on the $1.58 billion hospital project in Dunedin last night, Dunedin city councillor Jim O’Malley told local advisory group chairman Pete Hodgson the people he wanted answers from were not present.
Nobody at the meeting had authority over the budget, he said.
"You said the architectural changes are already bringing in about half the savings, so that $90 million shortfall has already dropped down to $45 million.
"My question isn’t to you, it’s actually to the PAs of our local Labour MPs," Cr O’Malley said.
"Why can’t we just close that gap at this point?
"This is a decision of Cabinet.
"That gap is getting closer and closer to getting closed.
"So, why can’t we send a message back to Wellington: close the gap . . . and we won’t have to have this debate any further," Cr O’Malley said
He received applause from the crowd of about 90 people at Otago Museum’s Hutton Theatre.
During the 90-minute meeting Mr Hodgson said the outpatient building was proceeding unchanged, but inflationary pressures had caught up to the larger — and second in line to be built — inpatient building.
At some point it made no sense to redesign a building, Mr Hodgson said.
Any savings would be consumed by the cost associated with the redesign itself.
That was what happened with the outpatient building.
"It’s remaining untouched because it’s so far down the track.
"The inpatient building will soon be so far down the track, it’ll reach that point.
"That’s why I think further cost increases will have to be absorbed by the taxpayer."
"Most of the $90 million savings, way more than half of the $90 million savings, are non clinical," Mr Hodgson said.
"They might be important ... but they are not clinical.
"Most of the changes that are clinical are deferred expenditure.
"That is to say on opening they will be shelled, they will be built, but not fitted out," he said.
New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science president Terry Taylor said he attended the update to ensure his views were known around how much space was now allocated to pathology in the new hospital.
The 350sq m was "totally inadequate", "really an embarrassment", and "a kick in the pants for all of the scientists and technicians in this country", he said.
The present provision was "a joke".
New Zealand Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels, who works in Dunedin Hospital’s emergency department, asked if there would be relief for the emergency department, which at present recorded 60-plus patients in the department most days, "lining the corridors".
She also wanted assurance there would be car parking close to the emergency department.
Dunedin Hospital project management office programme director Bridget Dickson said along with a 53-bed emergency department, there would also be on the ground floor a 32-bed assessment and planning unit that would take some pressure off the emergency department, an increase on the present provision.
There would also be short-term, drop-off, and emergency parking, as well as mobility car parks, at both the northern and southern ends of the inpatient building, she said.
