By Ruby Shaw of 
Thousands protested scaled back Dunedin Hospital plans earlier this year. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
"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.
In September, the government announced that due to rising costs, it had instructed Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora to review options to either scale back the planned new inpatient building or refurbish the existing ward block.
Linda Smillie, also a New Zealand Nurses Organisation delegate, has worked at the hospital for more than 20 years and knows the disruption a renovation would bring.
In 2017, construction began on the hospital's fifth floor to build a new intensive care unit.
Smillie, who was working on the floor below, said staff and patients were fatigued by months of near-constant noise.
"I'd say to people it was like being in a war zone.
"By the end of the day, or the shift, we tended to be exhausted just from the sheer effort of speaking and working in those conditions," she said.
"When it did actually stop at lunchtime or break time . . . the silence was absolutely deafening."
Patients were issued with earplugs and had to yell to make themselves heard while staff struggled to understand each other when discussing care information.
Dunedin nurse Linda Smillie. Photo: Supplied / ODT
"You adapted, but it was exhausting," Smillie said.
If the refurbishment of the existing ward block was signed off, Smillie would be bringing her retirement date forward, unwilling to relive the experience.
"They would actually have to decant whole bits of the hospital to somewhere else to enable it to be done - I just find it mind-boggling."
The government would have already approved the retrofit rather than reviewing the project if it was a feasible option, Smillie said.
"The government promised to build it.
"That's it, very simple - just build the damn hospital like it's supposed to be."
Morale among staff at the hospital was low, fuelled by uncertainly about the future of the hospital build.
"We're working in a really badly run-down facility - that impacts our ability to give patients our best care," Smillie said.
"I don't know that they'll make a good decision because [the government] don't make decisions based on evidence."
* This story first appeared in the Otago Daily Times.
