Dunedin (Friday, 24 March 2017) - Rebuilding Dunedin Hospital as a top flight teaching hospital in the central city is absolutely essential for Dunedin’s future.

All around the world, a central city hospital close to a university and medical school is seen as optimal. It’s difficult to identify anyone who wouldn’t be disadvantaged by moving Dunedin Hospital out of the central city. Outpatients and visitors catching buses from the soon to be completed nearby bus hub, retailers and cafes serving the area, and professors and medical students moving between the hospital and lecture theatres would all be affected.

The criteria for the location of the new hospital must be more than just budgetary – more than just “what can we build for the cheapest cost?” It also has to address what our community’s health needs are over the next 40 years and where that is best provided.

The Council has passed a series of resolutions and told the Government that a hospital site must be located in the central city and anything else would be unacceptable and extremely costly to our community in the long run. We’ve expressed concerns about the alternative locations under consideration and about the delays in progress for this essential project.

We’ve started a campaign, Dunedin Hospital SOS. If you support rebuilding Dunedin Hospital as a top flight teaching hospital in the central city, visit the website www.DunedinHospitalSOS.nz, or head into your nearest DCC library or service centre, fill out the letter to Government ministers and make our voice heard.

Dave Cull
Mayor of Dunedin

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