The decision to install air conditioning at high security units of Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison before much of Hawke’s Bay Hospital has been described as a “cruel irony”.
The two Government-run facilities are less than 10 minutes drive away from each other in Hastings, and are each known to swelter through the hot east coast summer.
Numerous complaints have been made about the need for air conditioning at Hawke’s Bay Hospital by both patients and staff over the past decade.
National promised to install air conditioning at the hospital in 2020, but was not elected, then Labour promised to build a new hospital in 2023, but was then also not elected.
The Department of Corrections said on Thursday it would be installing wall-mounted air-conditioning units in parts of the prison.
The tender for the project describes it as the Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison High Security Units Cooling Project.
Corrections said the project was to meet its obligations to ensure the health and safety of staff and prisoners at Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison.
Taradale resident Bridie Braham, who has started an online campaign to install air conditioning at the hospital before the prison, called the situation “a cruel irony”.
She said convicted criminals would soon enjoy the luxury of air-conditioning, while patients and staff at the hospital are left to “swelter through pain, exhaustion, and illness”.
“The injustice is glaring: justice is being kept cooler than compassion, and the people who save lives are being treated with less dignity than those who took them apart.”
Department of Corrections commissioner of custodial services Leigh Marsh said frontline Corrections employees worked “tirelessly” in the summer months to manage prisoners in hot and confined spaces and conditions, sometimes while wearing heavy equipment like stab-resistant body armour.
“Prisons can be extremely volatile environments and heat can significantly increase prisoner tension and aggression, creating a real risk that a staff member or prisoner could be seriously hurt,” he said.
“Some units at Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison currently have no air-conditioning, which poses significant health and safety risks to our frontline staff and people we manage.”
The installation of the air-conditioning units starts this month and is expected to be completed by early 2026.
Regional head of infrastructure central at Health New Zealand, Steve Crombie, said air-conditioning was available through some areas of Hawke’s Bay Hospital and the areas without it “are being considered as part of the planning and prioritisation process for future capital expenditure”.
A Health NZ spokesperson said patient safety was the organisation’s highest priority and they had effective measures in place at the hospital to ensure patient safety is maintained.
The spokesperson said Corrections and Health NZ did not co-ordinate asset planning and replacement.
Labour’s corrections spokeswoman Dr Tracey McLellan said her party was not opposed to improving conditions at the prison, but felt the Government had its priorities wrong.
Corrections is currently looking into a possible expansion of Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison, which Labour has also hit out at in recent weeks.
“Christopher Luxon can find millions for air-conditioning in prisons and billions for mega-prisons, but if local hospitals don’t even have AC for patients and frontline staff, he’s got his priorities wrong and is making things worse,” McLellan said.
Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison and Hawke’s Bay Hospital sit in the Tukituki electorate.
Tukituki National MP Catherine Wedd said she had been a “relentless advocate for better healthcare in Hawke’s Bay and ensuring we have safe communities”.
“Our Government is strongly focused on providing better healthcare in Hawke’s Bay and also keeping our Hawke’s Bay community safe by restoring law and order,” she said.
Wedd said the Government had already invested $100 million in Hawke’s Bay Hospital for a new 28-bed inpatient unit, upgraded radiology department, new Linac Cancer Treatment Machine, and modernised heart failure treatment.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier.