Government wants to scrap $400m Waikato Medical School proposal
Letter to Health Minister Shane Reti shows ACT Party Leader and soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour wants the project scrapped.
Hey friends,
Despite completing my degree last month, I keep finding myself back on campus. It’s a beautiful place where I’ve collected a lot of good memories over the past few years.
As I write this, I’m sitting in the University Library looking over at B-block, which is in the middle of its demolition. The University is making room for its ambitious $400m Waikato Medical School—a project that has been in talks for a decade.
As a part of the National Party’s election promise to support the new medical school to increase the number of doctors in New Zealand, especially rural general practitioners, the Government has been making progress to show they’re walking the talk.
Though “very sensitive to key assumptions", the early cost-benefit analysis for the proposed school said that out of the three options looked at, a new medical school was the most expensive but also expected to reap the most benefits.
But a newly released letter sent to Health Minister Shane Reti on 21 August, shows ACT Party Leader and soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour wants to scrap the project.
“I remain dissatisfied with the methodology of the cost-benefit analysis. In particular, the omission of the benefits and costs for specialist doctors (who will represent more than 80% of the graduates of the proposed Waikato medical school) materially alters the conclusions of the report and fails to meet the coalition agreement’s commitment to a full cost-benefit analysis."
“I oppose the continuation to a detailed business case. It will distract the Ministry of Health, when clearly their health expertise needs to focus on fixing Health New Zealand”
Seymour was so sceptical of the draft business case that his office provided its own cost-benefit analysis to Reti.
“The cost-benefit analysis concludes that the Waikato Medical School has the highest benefit-cost ratio of the options considered. I do not have confidence in this finding. My office’s ex-post analysis shows that the inclusion of specialist doctors erases the Waikato proposal’s advantage, even with very pro-GP assumptions.”
The scepticism continues.
Sapere, the researchers who conducted the cost-benefit analysis, produced a response to Seymour’s concerns within 24 hours, refuting his claims of dodgy analysis. But this week, Seymour reiterated his concerns.
“It is important we get a proper evaluation to make sure the government is pursuing the most effective policy. It's possible this option stacks up, or we might determine that funding is more effectively spent on policies like increasing GP capitation or expanding other medical schools."
Green Party public services spokesperson Francisco Hernandez said the business case documents blanked out the specific costs breakdown and called on the Government to release the full costings.
"The documents ... shows how flimsy the foundation is for the proposed medical school and the tensions within government over this issue,"
“Even if you were to take this report at face value, the Waikato Medical School proposal only achieves a BCR [benefit-cost] ratio of 2.7, which is only 0.1 higher than the alternative proposal."
In addition to Waikato University Vice-Chancellor Professor Neil Quigley’s previous comments to Reti that the theoretical first student intake in 2027 would be “a present to you to start your second term in government", these findings make Hernandez suspicious.
"Railroading the independent report to only consider options scoped by the Government makes it seem like they’ve already predetermined the answers they want.”
$100,000,000 in donations? Yeah, right.
The Otago Daily Times also discovered the Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Education advised Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds on 2 August they had little confidence in a cost-benefit analysis of the project that relied on "untested assumptions", had "significant gaps" in financial data, and did not fully consider alternative options.
Bryce Edwards reported that a second briefing to the Tertiary Education Minister expressed concern that Waikato wouldn’t be able to contribute its $100m share of the medical school’s establishment costs, as the University is already struggling to maintain its existing buildings.
“The University is attempting to raise money from philanthropic funding, but officials raised concerns about whether Waikato could secure these funds in time without resorting to large-scale borrowing, which would not be an option under the university’s current financial standing.”
Right now, the University doesn’t have the money to give current staff a healthy pay rise. While CPI increased around 18% from 2021 to 2023, the annualised salary increase for staff at the University was just under 6% in the same period. That's effectively a 12% pay decrease for University staff.
Around 45% of Waikato University's spending is on its staff, while staff spending at all other universities represents 50-57%. Waikato already spends less of its money on its people than any other university, so what's going to happen when they need to cough up $100 million for a medical school?
“Given the latest revelations, it seems appropriate that intense scrutiny and scepticism should be applied to what increasingly looks like a politician’s “pet project” that delivers to vested interests rather than a robust expansion of health education for the public good.”
“This saga is as much about political influence, fiscal responsibility, and public accountability as it is about healthcare.”
I’m curious to see how this story ends.
All the best,
Ben x
p.s. A swarm of ladybugs is called a loveliness. How cute.
👀 This week's highlights
🍿 Movie - Yesterday. “Jack, a struggling musician, meets with an accident during a blackout and wakes up to find out that only he remembers The Beatles. Later, he starts singing the band's songs to gain fame.” Such a sweet little movie.
📺 TV show - Fool Me Once on Netflix. “Maya Stern is trying to come to terms with the brutal murder of her husband, Joe. However, when Maya installs a nanny-cam to keep an eye on her young daughter, she is shocked to see her husband in her house.” This short series hurt my head, but it was brilliant. I bet my mum would like it.
📍Location - Raglan is a coastal town known for black-sand Ngarunui Beach, the long surf break at Manu Bay, native forest surrounding the tall Bridal Veil Falls, and a chilled-out small town centre. It’s less than an hour’s drive away from Hamilton—I take for granted how central Hamilton is between other awesome places. It was lovely to head to the beach this week. Our ancestors must have done a lot of thinking while in nature. No concrete boxes or notification dings, just a simple life. With our increasingly complicated and fast-paced lives, I think it could do us all some good to spend more time by the sea.
🎵 Music - Here are seven songs I’ve been playing on repeat this week. Olivia Dean, one of my favourite artists who released a new single this week, announced she’s playing a show in Auckland in February before she plays at Laneway Festival! But the tickets sold out within a day and I didn’t even hear about the show until a couple of days later. Sadness. This is the first ever disadvantage I’ve experienced from removing social media apps from my phone!
✍🏻 Quote of the week
“Changing your mind is not only acceptable, it’s a natural and healthy part of growth. We shouldn’t feel ashamed of it.
It’s okay not to agree with an idea the first time we hear it. We can disagree and later come around to it. We can start by agreeing 30% with an idea, then shift to 51% as we encounter new perspectives.
In fact, I believe we’d be better off removing the concepts of "right" and "wrong" from our vocabulary and instead embrace more nuanced language, like “I once thought this, and now I think this.”