Dunedin hospital bed cut farce funny if it wasn’t so serious

Three weeks ago Southern Say suggested that the new Dunedin hospital was the dominant southern political issue at the moment. After the shemozzle of this week, you can double down on that and then some.

First the Government dropped the bad news, no doubt hoping that most people would already be off on their holidays, that the new hospital would be smaller than proposed in the detailed business case.

Anyone who has been following the coverage of this ongoing issue in the Otago Daily Times should not have been surprised by this . . . we have reported for months that clinicians have been fighting a rearguard action to protect their patch from the accountants.

The only saving grace, and it was a pretty miserable one, was that the cuts announced by Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand (HNZ) on Tuesday were not as bad as they might have been . . . and at various stages during the budgeting process they could have been that bad.

But what really comes as a surprise was the revelation that apparently the detailed business case had been wrong all along and that the new Dunedin hospital was never actually meant to have the 421 beds that had been promised to southerners, and that Cabinet had signed off on. Apparently there were always 410 beds, and some had been double-counted by mistake.

And someone only thought to tell people now?

The site master plan for the hospital, released in 2019, pledged 454 beds, but in the detailed business case — released August 2021, that was down to 421.

That was also the number of beds cited in the Cabinet paper released at the same time.

But some time in the intervening 16 months the hospital size has shrunk again, only it hadn’t.

Someone had not thought to mention that the 421 figure should have been 410 . . . which after the cuts announced this week will now be 398.

Going, going, gone? Someone certainly should be for this absolute farce . . . it would almost be funny but for the fact that it is the healthcare services available to southerners that are the butt of the "joke".

Planners will try to explain away any concerns by saying the extra beds and operating theatres will be built and can be commissioned later, but this ignores the powerful arguments of southern health managers who in their response to HNZ’s proposed cuts said that what is known as "shelling" was a false economy because there being fewer facilities available now meant that operations would need to be outsourced, and because it would still be expensive — and quite likely more expensive — to eventually fit those empty spaces out in future.

Southern National MPs, particularly Michael Woodhouse, have now been given an almighty big stick to whack Labour with right up until election day.

Labour’s likely riposte, that at least they are actually getting on and building a new hospital, will be weakened by clinicians arguing that that new hospital will likely not meet the South’s requirements when it opens — and that will be, at added expense, at least a year behind schedule — let alone in the future.

Gift giving

National has already been gifted an almighty big political present but, as always, Southern Say has gifts for all our MPs.

The wine, oh wine award

For the second year running, to Mr Woodhouse. Last year he made, and lost, a bet for a case of wine that New Zealand’s Covid-19 vaccination rate would not be 90% by year’s end.

This year he made another wine bet, this time with Statistics Minister and Dunedin Labour MP David Clark, that the 2023 Census will not take place in 2023. Watch this space.

The bipartisanship award

Shared, fittingly, by Waitaki National MP Jacqui Dean and Dunedin Labour list MP Rachel Brooking, for this exchange in the House.

Dean: "We all wake up on a Saturday morning and, before we do anything else, we all grasp our phones and we go clickety, clickety, click click click, ‘Southern Say’."

Brooking. "I was very pleased to be in the House for the Hon Jacqui Dean’s first speech on this Bill . . . and her description of a Saturday morning if you are an Otago or Southland-based MP, because it was entirely accurate. In terms of, you wake up on a Saturday morning and quickly go to the Otago Daily Times website to see what Southern Say has said. It’s not always good."

The skyrocket award

Southland National MP Joseph Mooney is enthusiastic about all his portfolios, but you sense the one that really gets his gears going is "space". A ticket to the launch site of his choice please.

The persistence award

Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene having and failed to pass a law change in 2019 to guarantee Ngai Tahu representation on Environment Canterbury, succeeded this year. And he also warned assistant Speaker Ian McKelvie that a waiata would be sung once it was . . . and it was, loudly.

The rear view mirror award

Shared by Mrs Dean and Dr Clark, who have both announced they will be standing down from politics at the next election. Both want more time with their families and both well and truly deserve it.

The social whiz award

Taieri Labour MP Ingrid Leary, like all her colleagues, has a busy schedule of meetings each week, but few can match her appetite for highlighting them on social media. An extra pair of thumbs to help with posting all that material . . . it never does any harm for our MPs to tell us what they have been up to.

The pay attention award

Invercargill list MP Liz Craig made the last, but certainly not the least, speech in an emergency debate in October concerning the death of a patient at Middlemore Hospital.

Having worked in EDs, Dr Craig knew what she was talking about and gave a thoughtful, broad, dissertation about the whole health system and how it interconnects . . . one which planners for a certain hospital building project near here might want to consider.

The smash it up award

Invercargill National MP Penny Simmonds has had a very good year challenging the rationale of the vocational education merger and ruffling the feathers of the normally unflappable Chris Hipkins in the process . . . in the year’s final question time he made an uncharacteristic personal attack on Ms Simmonds.

A great big hammer which, should National win next year’s election, she can take to the Te Pukenga of her choice.

And a thank you very much award to the readers of Southern Say, especially the ones who take the trouble to write in, even if it’s to award me the "toady of the week award" for suggesting the Prime Minister might be occasionally competent at her job, or to award me the "creep of the week award" for suggesting that occasionally that she might not be.

At least you are reading, that is the main thing.

mike.houlahan@odt.co.nz

 - Southern Say will be back in late January.