Residents deserve ‘straight answer’
THE people of Dunedin deserve a straight answer about the funding of the new hospital, Labour health spokeswoman Ayesha Verrall says.
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti, who has yet to visit the city since the new government was elected, described National’s $30 million preelection pledge to reverse hospital cuts as ‘‘a priority’’ and ‘‘still on the table’’ in a TVNZ interview on Sunday.
Dr Verrall said the commitment was not clear, and nor was the funding model — National’s coalition agreement with Act committed the government to investigate build and leaseback arrangements with the private sector to build public service infrastructure.
‘‘The people of Dunedin deserve a straight answer.
‘‘In particular they deserve to know if the hospital will be fully publicly funded, as Labour intended, or as a public private partnership.
‘‘I have grave concerns about the use of [partnerships] — they make us tenants in their own hospitals’’
Dr Reti told the Otago Daily Times yesterday there were a number of large and complex hospital projects under consideration throughout the country. Dunedin’s new hospital was one of them, and it remained a priority, he said.
On Sunday he told TVNZ there were bigger parts of the project that needed to be focused on, but he did not elaborate on what these were yesterday.
He did not say whether the pledged boost was an option or a certainty, nor when he planned to visit the city.
Former new hospital local advisory group chairman Pete Hodgson also called for more clarity on the topic.
‘‘I think that the National Party made some very clear undertakings before the election and owe the people of Otago Southland an update on what they intend to do about those very clear undertakings now that they are in government,’’ he said.