They Save We Pay
Phoebe Eden-Mann, National Policy Analyst
As a disabled person, I spend rather a lot of time hanging about in hospital waiting rooms; in fact I’ve joked to my specialists that I’m considering sending out change of address cards and have my mail forwarded to them. I know from experience that Dunedin Public Hospital is dilapidated at best, and we desperately need a new one.
When the new hospital build was announced, it was brilliant. Finally, we were getting a hospital that wasn’t full of asbestos, leaking operating rooms, had wards with enough beds, and functioned to meet the needs of Otago. It was going to future proof our health care, something that desperately needs doing given our aging population. Alas, that all changed when the hospital new build cuts were announced.
The cuts will have significant implications for the future of health care in Otago. It means we lose two buildings, two operating theatres, a sky bridge, we’ll have fewer hospital beds, no PET CT scanner, one less MRI scanner, drastically reduced pathology and pharmacology units, as well as poorer working conditions overall. The new hospital that we so desperately needed, campaigned for, and were promised, has fallen flat and in its place is a shell of a proposal that is fundamentally not up to par.
Disabled people are often at high risk of poor health and wellbeing outcomes; they are likely to be high users of the health system compared with non-disabled people. We also know that due to our aging population, our disability rates are about to skyrocket. The demand for health services will only increase, particularly in areas such as geriatric care (experts said we needed 32 beds for elderly mental health care, but as it stands, we’re only getting 12). By scaling back the plan and cutting the hospital build budget significantly, not only will we end up with a hospital that doesn’t meet our current needs, but we will have spent an enormous amount of money failing to future proof our health care.
When the plan was announced in 2020, it was cause for celebration. But at the end of last year, the Government broke their promise to the people of Otago. They decided to save money over saving lives. They decided to value money over people. We deserve more. We deserve the hospital that was campaigned for for so long, and was promised to us. Disabled people deserve to have a hospital that is functional and future proofed. The people of Otago deserve better than a broken promise hospital that’s built on short sighted, saving focused design.
We need the Government to fulfil their promise. Lives quite literally depend on it. When they save, we pay. And that’s not good enough.