Regional Councillor warns regions to be wary of Dunedin Hospital plans & effects upon regional services

Otago regional councillor, and former Mayor & DHB board member Michael Laws, is today warning Otago and Southland regional and community leaders to be “both careful and wary about the proposed new hospital being planned for downtown Dunedin.”

“ Health bureaucrats and politicians have a dreadful tendency to want to centralise health facilities once they commit to new and expensive buildings. They try and regain through their operational day-to-day expenditure, the money that they’ve outlaid upon their capital expenditure.

“ Before the champagne is opened, I’d be getting some very firm commitments upon the future and finances of existing and proposed health services in the wider region. This is good news for Dunedin. It may not be quite so for the rest of Otago/Southland.”

Cr Laws said that it was his experience on DHB boards that “the Devil is in the detail. After the politicians make the funding promises, the bureaucrats try and save money elsewhere. Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes are growing at phenomenal rates. The demand is for health services there, not so much in Dunedin over 250 kilometres away. Dunstan and Queenstown hospitals require significant investment and upgrade. Where’s that funding?”

“ This is a significant chunk of government money. Recent political and health history tells us that central government prefers to shift money around, rather than find 100% new funding. I don’t want to be cynical about this, but I think regional leaders and communities do need to be very vigilant going forward.”

ENDS

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