Doctors and city councillors in Dunedin want assurances there'll be no further cuts to plans for the city's new hospital.
There's already been major changes to the design in a bid to save money on the $1.5b project.
A funding shortfall of $90m led to cost-cutting design changes in December, despite the Government announcing $110m in additional funding.
Last night, Te Whatu Ora Southern held a public meeting on the issue — the first time such a meeting has been held since the cuts were announced days before Christmas.
Pete Hodgson, chairman of the New Dunedin Hospital Local Advisory Group, started the meeting by apologising for the local project team's lack of communication.
"We've dropped the ball on communication with the New Dunedin Hospital in recent months and so this meeting is part of a process to redress that.
"For a long time we've said nowhere near enough," Hodgson said.
The meeting gave doctors, councillors, and members of the public a chance to ask questions and have some of their concerns addressed.
Their concerns are over the hospital not being built as per the detailed business case Cabinet signed off in 2021.
The budget blowout cuts
That business case included 410 beds. Now there'll be 398 on opening, plus shell space for 12 more.
'Shelling' means building a space but not utilising it, with the option to expand the hospital when the need arises in the future. This means expenditure is able to be deferred.
The number of operating theatres has been cut from 28 to 26, and there won't be a PET scanner operating on opening.
The pathology unit is a big area of concern. The department has been downsized from 1300 sq metres, to 350sq metres.
Pathologists are calling the move "totally inadequate" and a "kick in the guts".
"Come on, give us a better go than what we're being given here, 350 metres, we're not a nightclub, we're a pathology laboratory," Terry Taylor, president of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Science, said.
Hamish Brown from Te Whatu Ora Southern stressed the importance of pathology services in a modern hospital, and said a solution is still being worked through.
"But we can give you absolute assurance that there will be pathology services and they will be fit for purpose for the hospital," he said.
Anne Daniels, president of the NZ Nurses Organisation, raised concerns about the stress the emergency department is already under.
"Right now, most days we actually have 60 plus patients in the department lining the corridors. I understand from your presentation that there's about 52/53 beds coming up in the new build, so the maths doesn't quite work, we're already behind the eight ball as it were," she said.
A parent raised concerns about creche facilities being left off the plans initially, while another said a PET scanner is an important diagnostic tool that should be in the final plans.
Worry there'll be further cuts
Most found the meeting helpful, and many of their questions were answered, but clinicians are worried there'll be further cuts, and want reassurance that's not the case.
Te Whatu Ora said the design process isn't finished and it's been pushing back against the changes.
"We thought we were getting something and then it has been reduced down and then it's been tightened," Sheila Barnett, chairwoman of the Clinical Transformation Group, said.
"It has been a feeling of progressive loss I guess but what we have ended up with may actually be a very reasonable and good outcome."
But Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich still has his doubts.
"They're doing the best with what they've got, so it's an impossible sell. They're trying to sell us something less than fit for purpose and say that it's great."
The outpatient building isn't changing and is set to open in 2025. However, the redesign of the inpatient building will push the opening of that back by at least a year to 2029.
Dunedin emergency department specialist Dr John Chambers said there's "absolutely no way" $90m will be saved by the time the hospital opens.
"Because of other inflationary things happening and other things that are unknown, the final bill will probably exceed the $1.5b by a couple of hundred million dollars," Chambers said.
Meanwhile the Dunedin City Council continues it's $130,000 public campaign to fight the changes.
"We're feeling very focused, we're feeling very determined to influence the Government to put a little bit more money in to make it happen," Radich said
"Ideally, I'd like to talk to Minister of Finance Grant Roberston 'cause there's a little bit of extra money that's required."
Radich said he's contacted Robertson's office, but is yet to receive a response.
"The really simple message is build what was promised, do it once and do it right and do it now."
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