08 Mar 2025
A revamp at Health New Zealand could help prevent debacles such as the problem-plagued new Dunedin hospital project from happening again, a leading health advocate says.
01 Mar 2025
The outpatient building of the new Dunedin Hospital is facing significant delays which risk blowing the budget, Treasury is warning.
27 Feb 2025
Access to timely, quality healthcare is essential for Southlanders, and the Government remains committed to meeting these needs.
27 Feb 2025
It’s a relief for all residents of Dunedin, and indeed the wider South, to finally have a decision on the final scope of the new Dunedin Hospital.
21 Feb 2025
Work is continuing on the concrete structure in front of the new Dunedin hospital’s inpatient building.
21 Feb 2025
There are serious concerns about the earthquake-resistant status of the new Dunedin hospital project, a city councillor warns
21 Feb 2025
In 2023 National promised growth; the growth of the Dunedin hospital. But a year later there was a major backtrack.
12 Feb 2025
The cost of keeping Dunedin's ageing hospital running spiralled to $3.5 million last year amid concerns it will fall apart before the new one opens.
12 Feb 2025
Complacency cannot be allowed to creep in when it comes to ensuring a suitable hospital is built in Dunedin, city councillors have declared.
04 Feb 2025
The senior doctors' union is frustrated the government won't say which departments at Dunedin Hospital will have fewer beds under the new plan, unveiled last week. Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton spoke to Charlotte Cook.
03 Feb 2025
Dunedin's pathologists feel they have been "once again ... left in the lurch" after the government’s announcement about the new hospital failed to provide answers for the department, a leading clinician says.
03 Feb 2025
Health Minister Simeon Brown came to Dunedin on Friday to announce the fate of the new Dunedin hospital project. This is a lightly edited version of what he announced.
01 Feb 2025
Southerners, pat yourselves on the back. You have been heard. That is worth celebrating and comes as a victory of sorts.
01 Feb 2025
The new Dunedin hospital will meet the needs of the South and is the "best we could have hoped for", the leading clinician on the project says.
01 Feb 2025
Dunedin marched and the government listened in what was a "big win" for the region, the city’s Mayor, Jules Radich, says.
01 Feb 2025
The Dunedin hospital inpatient building is going ahead and there will be activity on site by the middle of this year, the government has announced.
01 Feb 2025
Health Minister Simeon Brown’s main talking point yesterday - and you know it was his main talking point because he said it about a dozen times - was the government had listened to the people of the South and decided to go ahead with the new Dunedin hospital project.
31 Jan 2025
Analysis: When considering calamity, the rule of thumb is to favour mismanagement over conspiracy.
31 Jan 2025
Pete Hodgson is the former MP for Dunedin, former minister of health, and was was Chairperson of the Southern Partnership Group providing governance for the New Dunedin Hospital from 2017 until May of 2024. He joins Emile Donovan.
31 Jan 2025
Health Minister Simeon Brown has confirmed the new inpatient building for Dunedin Hospital will be built on the site of the former Cadbury factory.
31 Jan 2025
The government announced in September that the Dunedin Hospital project would need to be scaled back or done in stages, because the cost was predicted to balloon to 3 billion dollars which it said at the time was unaffordable. But after months of heated community protests and a lot of criticism, newly appointed Health Minister Simeon Brown said the government has listened and the revised hospital build will go ahead at the old Cadbury factory site, the same site the government had previously said was unsuitable. Associate Professor of Psychiatry and consultant in Geriatric Mental Health at Dunedin hospital, Dr Yoram Barak spoke to Lisa Owen.
31 Jan 2025
Simeon Brown has confirmed plans for Dunedin's new hospital, unveiling details of the project, which will cost 1.88 billion dollars to complete.
31 Jan 2025
The government is being unrealistic and ignoring the needs of an ageing population, an associate professor of psychiatry says.
31 Jan 2025
The government's freshly announced plans for the Dunedin Hospital shows the rebuild will initially have fewer beds than the current hospital. Reporter Delphine Herbert spoke to Charlotte Cook.
31 Jan 2025
"We have listened," this said by newly minted Health Minister, Simeon Brown as he unveiled the government's revised plans for Dunedin's new hospital. The rebuild was paused last year after a report estimated costs could climb to 3 billion dollars; the government's budget is about 1.9 million dollars. The move outraged many locals, and hospital specialists. Today, the government confirmed the build will go ahead at the Cadbury Factory site - despite its criticism of the site. Blake Lepper, the Head of Infrastructure Delivery at Health New Zealand spoke to Lisa Owen.
31 Jan 2025
Dunedin will get a new hospital on the Cadbury site, but the government's cutback plan means it will have fewer beds on opening than previously planned.
31 Jan 2025
The government announced in September that the Dunedin Hospital project would need to be scaled back or done in stages, because the cost was predicted to balloon to 3 billion dollars which it said at the time was unaffordable. But after months of heated community protests and a lot of criticism, newly appointed Health Minister Simeon Brown said the government has listened and the revised hospital build will go ahead at the old Cadbury factory site, the same site the government had previously said was unsuitable. Associate Professor of Psychiatry and consultant in Geriatric Mental Health at Dunedin hospital, Dr Yoram Barak spoke to Lisa Owen.
31 Jan 2025
The health minister was confronted on Friday by noisy protesters after his announcement about the new Dunedin Hospital, with one protester hitting his car with their placard.
27 Jan 2025
In a continuing series on the importance of Dunedin Hospital, Jo Millar pays tribute to its staff.
24 Jan 2025
Contractors working on the new Dunedin hospital have been given an indication that the Cadbury site will be built on.
22 Jan 2025
The new Dunedin hospital project "remains important", the government’s new advocate for the South Island says.
21 Jan 2025
The minister in charge of overseeing the new Dunedin hospital project has declined to speak to the Otago Daily Times.
21 Jan 2025
Amid reports of leaky operating theatres, millions have been left unspent keeping the lights on at Dunedin’s ageing hospital, making it New Zealand’s most delayed major health project.
17 Jan 2025
In the second of a three-part series, Pete Hodgson argues that the new Dunedin hospital project needs a culture change.
16 Jan 2025
In the first of a three-part series, Pete Hodgson asks what can be learnt from the new Dunedin hospital debacle?
15 Jan 2025
Build the new southern hospital once and build it right, Jules Radich writes.
13 Jan 2025
Southerners with Christmas carol tunes still on the brain might be tempted to burst into some angry choruses of "Why are we waiting" this month.
11 Jan 2025
The government has been accused of a "blatant disregard for transparency" as unanswered questions continue to mount while the South waits for a decision on the new Dunedin hospital.
10 Jan 2025
In a continuing series on the importance of Dunedin Hospital, Bryan Cadogan writes from personal experience of how vital it is to regional Otago and Southland.
09 Jan 2025
Residents in the lower South Island remain in the dark about the future of the new Dunedin Hospital as costs continue to rise.
07 Jan 2025
We need to stand for more than paring back budgets, Peter Matheson writes.
03 Jan 2025
In the second of a series highlighting the importance of a new Dunedin hospital Sophie Barker writes about how the facility has been a lifesaver for her and her family.
30 Dec 2024
The South deserves nothing less than a tertiary-level teaching hospital, Brigid Loughnan writes.
30 Dec 2024
Dunedin's leaking hospital has been described as "third world" by a Central Otago man who visited his mother there over the holidays.
22 Dec 2024
"Just build the damn hospital." That's one Dunedin nurse's straightforward appeal to the government - rejecting a "mind-boggling" proposal to the existing Dunedin Hospital.
19 Dec 2024
What a terrible year 2024 has been for government decisions affecting Dunedin. The scaling back of the Dunedin Hospital rebuild is appalling and has rightly been met with community outrage.
19 Dec 2024
Presbyterian Support Otago buddy co-ordinator Steph Finnie (left) and team leader Jollene Warrington help Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich unload donations from Cliff the Ambulance.
18 Dec 2024
Consultants for Dunedin’s new hospital project have cost over $121 million, including $86m on a site which features only piles.
17 Dec 2024
Analysis – Health authorities sat on information about the new Dunedin hospital for months as the project spiralled out of control, emails show.
17 Dec 2024
Dunedin city councillors Sophie Barker (left) and Mandy Mayhem rode Cliff the Ambulance through the streets of Sawyers Bay, Port Chalmers and Careys Bay, and then Caversham and Clyde Hill, last night, delivering meals as they went.
16 Dec 2024
The cost of delays to the Dunedin Hospital rebuild had already reached $5 million a month before Te Whatu Ora took over, former health boss Chris Fleming says.
13 Dec 2024
The new Dunedin hospital will be built, as promised, under Labour, Dr Tracey McLellan writes.
13 Dec 2024
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti sets out the government’s case for its management of the new Dunedin hospital project.
13 Dec 2024
Public servants have advised ministers a long-promised new inpatient building for Dunedin hospital should get built rather than refurbishing the old one, the Otago Daily Times has learned.
10 Dec 2024
Government ministers are remaining tight-lipped over when it will make an announcement about the new Dunedin hospital.
07 Dec 2024
Southern nurses say they are sick of putting up with inadequate staffing, broken and missing equipment and threatened IT support. Mary Williams reports.
06 Dec 2024
Dunedin Hospital was always designed to be efficient: More day surgery, a planning and assessment unit alongside the emergency department, considerable digital enablement and more investment in primary and community health.
05 Dec 2024
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says his Government is committed to getting the best value for money for Dunedin Hospital.
05 Dec 2024
Health New Zealand officials are not ruling out cutting some specialist services from Dunedin and moving them to Christchurch, as the city awaits the fate of the new Dunedin hospital.
05 Dec 2024
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon remained quiet yesterday on when his government would make a decision around the new Dunedin hospital.
04 Dec 2024
Christmas has arrived early at Parliament, with a posse of 20 santas bringing their own southern wish list to the capital.
04 Dec 2024
Health Minister Shane Reti has batted away suggestions the new Dunedin hospital’s outpatients building could be sold.
04 Dec 2024
More than 400 nurses marched to the Otago Museum Reserve yesterday, as the New Zealand Nurses Organisation launched a nationwide strike.
03 Dec 2024
Christmas has arrived early at Parliament, with a posse of 20 santas bringing their own southern wish list to the capital.
02 Dec 2024
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has promised his party will build the new Dunedin hospital to its pre-election campaign specifications if elected in 2026.
30 Nov 2024
Doctors warned officials that scaling down plans for the new Dunedin hospital at an advanced stage of the design risked leaving it in a "clinically precarious state" - just two days before the government announced its cutbacks to the project.
27 Nov 2024
In the final part of his six-part series on the health system Mike Hunter contemplates what next for the new Dunedin hospital?
26 Nov 2024
As the campaign to “Save our Southern Hospital’’ continues, one couple is taking the message to the road.
26 Nov 2024
A leak in Dunedin’s ageing hospital caused a partial ceiling collapse yesterday and left water streaming into a room where sterile surgery equipment is stored.
25 Nov 2024
The United Nations Association of New Zealand claims the government could be in violation of the right to health, with the continued changes to the new Dunedin hospital.
23 Nov 2024
A shiny new, state-of-the-art hospital for Dunedin was a promise made by Labour and carried forward by National in their election campaign. Ben Tomsett reports on the $3 billion Dunedin Hospital saga.
22 Nov 2024
Developer Russell Lund remains unconvinced by arguments against refurbishing the former Dunedin hospital building.
22 Nov 2024
Professor Garry Nixon is Director of the University of Otago’s Centre for Rural Health, and a rural doctor at Dunstan Hospital in Clyde. OPINION: Complex geography, a small, dispersed population base and increasingly specialised modern healthcare combine to create a unique set of health system challenges in Otago and Southland.
22 Nov 2024
Professor Tim Wilkinson is Acting Dean of Otago Medical School and Professor of Medicine and Medical Education. OPINION: Medical schools exist to advance the health of the country. They do this by training fit-for-purpose doctors and by advancing medical knowledge.
22 Nov 2024
Locals can support the Save Our Southern Hospital campaign by visiting ‘Cliff’, Dunedin City Council’s campaign ambulance, in Wānaka this afternoon
21 Nov 2024
It doesn’t matter whether you’re driving a tractor in northern Southland or a Mercedes down George St in Dunedin, Jason Herrick told a packed Dunedin Town Hall on Monday night – with health we’re all on a level playing field and we all need the same services.
20 Nov 2024
Rob Campbell, former chair of Te Whatu Ora, gave a speech on “The future of health infrastructure” at an event organised by The Opportunities Party in Dunedin on 17 November, where he shared his views on how to improve the current system.
19 Nov 2024
Dunedin clinicians have provided feedback on the two options the government called for when it announced a $1.88 billion cap on Dunedin’s new hospital — and both "fall far short", senior clinician Dr Sheila Barnett says.
19 Nov 2024
A sea of Southerners filled Dunedin's Town Hall last night in support of the Save Our Southern Hospital campaign.
18 Nov 2024
Paul Miller is a big man with a big message. The former number 8, who made the All Blacks over two decades ago, is also a cancer survivor turned health advocate. He told a packed rally on Monday night why he was against proposed cuts to the Dunedin Hospital project.
18 Nov 2024
Seven weeks after Health Minister Shane Reti and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop came to Dunedin to scaremonger about the Dunedin hospital rebuild, we are no clearer about what will happen next.
18 Nov 2024
A Dunedin Town Hall meeting has been held as part of a campaign for the new Dunedin hospital.
18 Nov 2024
The Dunedin mayor is disappointed but unsurprised the Health Minister will be a no show at a meeting tonight to protest any cuts to the Dunedin Hospital rebuild project.
18 Nov 2024
Financial efficiency is blamed for the government rethinking its plan to renovate Dunedin Hospital, which could leave rural areas of the Southern region at risk.
16 Nov 2024
The government will not say whether selling the outpatients building is still an option to help fund the new Dunedin hospital project.
15 Nov 2024
A ‘‘raucous’’ Dunedin Town Hall meeting is set to be the next stage of the campaign for the new Dunedin hospital.
15 Nov 2024
The incident was the direct result of an underfunded health system, “a broken hospital that urgently needs replacing and a Government which just doesn’t care about mothers in the lower South”.
15 Nov 2024
Health officials have investigated selling the outpatients building to help fund the beleaguered new Dunedin hospital project, the Otago Daily Times has learned.
14 Nov 2024
A petition delivered to the government on Wednesday of last week garnered more than 34,400 signatures.
14 Nov 2024
Health New Zealand (HNZ) has not said what it is spending on the consultants it has looking into retrofitting the old ward tower block at Dunedin hospital.
14 Nov 2024
Senior officials at Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) are raising doubts about the option of refurbishing Dunedin Hospital, sources say.
14 Nov 2024
When the prime minister visited Dunedin a fortnight ago, something important was conspicuously missing from his visit: us.
13 Nov 2024
Shifting surgical services to rural hospitals is not an alternative to a proper rebuild of Dunedin hospital, Mike Hunter writes in part five of his series on the health system.
09 Nov 2024
Parliamentary security is not overly fond of seeing vehicles on the forecourt - it still has nightmares about former National MP Shane Ardern driving Myrtle the tractor up the stairs in 2003 during an anti-methane tax protest.
09 Nov 2024
First the Octagon, then the South, then the roads leading to Cook Strait, and finally the other island and Parliament itself.
09 Nov 2024
A town hall meeting will be another opportunity for the public to send a message to health decision-makers, Dunedin’s mayor says.
09 Nov 2024
There are disgruntled and confused voices in the construction industry following extensive redesign and delays to construction of the new Dunedin hospital’s inpatient building. Mary Williams investigates.
09 Nov 2024
Consultants have been brought in to examine retrofitting the existing Dunedin Hospital instead of constructing a new inpatient building, the Otago Daily Times has learned.
04 Nov 2024
Cliff the repurposed ambulance garnered plenty of attention in Oamaru on Saturday on its trip north for the Save our Southern Hospital campaign.
04 Nov 2024
Dunedin City Council's Save Our Southern Hospital Campaign is hitting Wellington on Wednesday, where Cliff the Ambulance will deliver a petition to Parliament.