'There's going to be a bloody fight': 35,000 march to protest new Dunedin hospital cuts

In a powerful show of Southern unity, Dunedin’s city centre was today flooded with protesters “outraged” over plans to scale back plans for a new hospital.

The protest march began at midday at the Dunedin Dental School, before moving along George Street to the Octagon in the city centre.

An hour later the last of the 35,000-strong crowd entered Dunedin’s Octagon to shout, chant and and sing their support for retaining the original plans for a south region tertiary hospital, based in Dunedin.

“We appreciate your attendance and the government will notice it,” Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich said.

“For many of you this is your first protest, a great many of us are here for the first time and that’s because people across the southern region are outraged by the idea of cuts to this hospital.

“We are here to send the government a clear message to keep their promise.”

In the words of Clutha Mayor Bryan Cadogan said the region would not accept being “a Third World afterthought….there’s going to be a bloody fight”.

“We are here because we have been bloody lied to.

“All we are left with is a wrecking ball of broken promises and twisted priorities. W are told this week they can’t find the money for the health of the south. This week’s announcement that we will have to make do will either half a hospital or a revamped of the old building is an insult. This hospital is critical, not only to Dunedin but the wider region.”

New Zealand Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels said the the government’s announcement was a case of them making “decisions about us, without us”.

“This government has failed us, the people, they  have failed themselves.

“We will fight until we get what we were promised. The government has taken it away from the people, it’s time for us to take it back.”

Protest numbers likely increased following the confirmation on Thursday that the government would not fund the ballooning costs of the original project, now estimated to be as much as $3 billion.

Instead, the government committed to providing one of two scaled-down options, within the project’s existing appropriated budget cost of $1.88 billion.

One option is a revision of the project’s specification and scope within the existing structural envelope, such as reducing the number of floors, delaying the fit-out of some areas until they’re needed, and/or identifying further services that can be retained on the existing hospital site or in other Health NZ buildings within Dunedin among other possible solutions.

The other option is a staged development on the old hospital site including a new clinical services building and refurbishing the existing ward tower.

The budget increases for the project have happened over the lifetimes of three governments, since the Ministry of Health first appointed the Southern Partnership Group to lead the redevelopment of the hospital in 2015.

In June,  2017, two options were put forward: a new hospital on a new greenfield site, and or new hospital on the Wakari (north Dunedin) site.

In both cases, the estimated cost of the project was between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion.

The 2019 Budget approved a total budget of $1.4 billion for the project.

The Budget allocated $10.6 million to FY2019-20 and noted that the remaining funding would be allocated over the 10-year life of the project.

The following year, the government approved in principle the detailed business case, agreeing on a preferred design that included two separate buildings, and added an additional $127m  to progress design, demolition, piling, project management and Early Contractor Engagement (EC).

In 2021, the government approved in principle the Final Detailed Business Case for the New Dunedin Hospital Project at a total budget of $1.47 billion.

The next year, the government announced additional funding of $110 million for the delivery of the project, to manage a cost escalation of $200 million, increasing the budget to $1.58 Billion. That budget rose again in Aril, 2023 by an additional  $10m toward an additional MRI machine and collaborative workspace.

Through a separate business case and funding process, $82 million was also announced for Stage 1 of digital infrastructure.

In April 2024 new, National-led government commissioned an independent review into the project.

The following month it approved an additional $290 million to be held under contingency for the project, taking the budget to $1.88 billion.