Dunedin Hospital, COVID Tests and Speed Limits w/ The Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March: October 2nd, 2024.

Last week, infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop and Health Minister Shane Reti announced that the planned redevelopment of the new Dunedin Hospital would need to be scaled back, based on projections that the upgrade costs could reach or exceed $3 billion New Zealand dollars. 

Advice given to Te Whatu Ora, Health New Zealand, has been to either reduce the scale of the hospital’s infrastructural development or to develop the project in stages.

The decision has been widely criticised, both by the general public and local government officials in Dunedin, who say that the announcement contradicts the coalition’s promise to continue a project started by the previous Labour government to rebuild Dunedin hospital to full capacity and capabilities.

For their weekly catchup, I spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March to discuss the decision to roll back on the development of Dunedin Hospital.

They also had a kōrero about the end of free covid test distribution and the government’s sign off on changes to increase speed limits.