Dr Victor Luca
President, Whakatāne District Grey Power Association

Over the past year I have lodged a series of OIA requests with several of our health authorities to try to solve the puzzle of why the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner we were first promised for Whakatāne Hospital more than six years ago has never materialized.

In a Beacon letter dated September 20, 2020, Richard Forster (branch president, Whakatāne Hospital, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists) highlighted that MRI is now generally considered to be an essential imaging modality for medical care in hospitals giving secondary care as is the case in Whakatāne. He is dead right. He wrote the following:

“We understand that some months ago the BOP District Health Board forwarded this (MRI scanner) proposal to the Ministry of Health for approval as the company would need to lease or buy part of the hospital campus to erect the building.”

So there it is. As early as 2020, the Ministry of Health had accepted that our hospital should be equipped with an MRI scanner to complement the X-ray CT scanner that was already installed there. It was later confirmed that the MRI scanner was indeed to be owned and operated by a private provider.

After the passing of almost three years, on June 19, 2024 Grey Power members were informed at one of our monthly meetings by the operations manager at Bay Radiology that the MRI scanner was to be installed by December of that year.

When no installation occurred Health New Zealand (HNZ) informed us that seismic issues were mainly to blame for the last-minute failure of negotiations between HNZ and the private provider.

On April 1, 2026, we came to learn that “an agreement for a lease wasn’t reached and the MRI (intended to be installed at Whakatāne Hospital) has been relocated to Masterton. The MRI was owned by the private provider. Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora will continue to work through options to place an MRI in Whakatāne.”

On April 22, 2026 HNZ informed us that “unfortunately, we weren’t able to reach a final agreement, mainly due to concerns about the suitability of the proposed site, including seismic requirements”.

The hospital site has a hidden fault passing near or through it and Geological and Nuclear Sciences (now Earth Sciences New Zealand) has been attempting to define its precise location since at least 2016.

Thus far the exact location has not been determined because it’s a “tough nut to crack”.

Since the end of 2024, we have been trying to find out what went wrong with HNZ’s processes that caused the debacle and what is going to happen going forward.

HNZ spends public money and, therefore, we figure we have a right to know. We are entitled to the unvarnished truth.

In this open letter we put three questions to HNZ that we wish responded to.

■ Question 1:

If seismic issues were the main problem as HNZ claimed, why have O’Brien Geotech in their September 2021 report to HNZ concluded that it is not? Their report concludes with the following statement:

“The site is considered to be suitable for the proposed development. The site is vulnerable to liquefaction from greater than 1 in 250 level of shaking. However, only minor surface damage is predicted for ULS level shaking (1 in 1000 year).”

■ Question 2:

On May 20, 2026 another OIA request revealed that a new project was being developed, and that the following four options were being considered to progress the project:

1) Private venture with current BOP provider onsite at Whakatāne Hospital.

2) Private venture via RFP (Request For Proposal) onsite at Whakatāne Hospital.

3) Installation of a privately funded, HNZ managed MRI scanner at Whakatāne Hospital

4) Installation of a HNZ-owned MRI scanner at Whakatāne Hospital.

We were informed by HNZ that the determination of which option would be chosen was to be made by a “decision making group”.

Another OIA request has asked for the identity of the persons comprising this group. It turns out that the group consists of only one person, Dr Cath Cronin, the executive regional director for our region. It’s a bad sign when an outfit like HNZ seems to think that a group can comprise a single person. Doesn’t bode well when a critical decision is being made by a single person that is not an expert in the field as far as I can tell.

Also, if the private provider option has already failed, then why even bother considering this option? Why not just go the fully public option and cut out the middle-man? My data suggests that about half of New Zealand’s MRI facilities are publicly owned and operated.

■ Question 3:

For much of this year I have been trying to get HNZ to update a radiology catalogue that I first compiled in 2021 after making OIA requests to the then existing 20 district health boards.

I wanted to know how many imaging systems of each type (MRI, X-ray CT, PET-CT, SPECT …) we had in New Zealand, who owned and operated them, and the patient throughput.

After my OIA request was initially refused, I lodged a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman who forced HNZ to comply.

My initial 2021 catalogue revealed there were four MRI scanners in the Bay of Plenty region and that they were all located at the private Grace Hospital.

I have since come to learn that another three scanning facilities will be developed in Tauranga area.

One will be located at the Tara Road Health Centre in Papamoa. If these additional scanners materialise, there would be seven scanners located in and around Tauranga and none for Whakatāne. Doesn’t really seem equitable, does it?

Strangely, the existing scanners seem to process only about 3.5 patients per scanner per day, according to the numbers I was provided in 2021.

Since the average scan takes 30 minutes, how is this significant under-utilisation to be explained?

We are constantly told there are long waiting lists for MRI scans.

The updated data suggests that on average there are now about six patients processed per scanner per day.

In other words, the patient throughput has increased by about 70 percent in five years.

I have been informed by a senior radiologist from another region that MRI facilities should easily be able to process between 10 and 12 patients per scanner per day.

Would HNZ care to explain this?

Please stop messing us around and give us the straight scoop.

If Dr Cronin wants to consult on the best option, don’t hesitate to give me a call.