Health board silent on vacant $250,000 share

By BRIDGET CARTER

A health board has spent $250,000 of public money on a share of a building which its staff have yet to move into nearly two years later - and refuses to say why.

In November 2001, the Northland District Health Board agreed to pay for nearly half of the historic Kingston House in Kerikeri, sold by the Bay of Islands Hospice for $550,000, according to Kingston House Trust chairman Tom Baker.

Mr Baker said money was raised for the trust to pay for just over half the building. The board said it wanted to use the house for health services and eventually make it a location for day surgery, and agreed to pay the extra $250,000 for its purchase.

But board staff have still not moved into the building, leaving the trust unable to make any certain future plans for Kingston House.

"I have been trying to communicate with them to find out what they are going to do ... but have no explanation as to why they have not moved in," he said. "We have got $250,000 of their money."

Board chairwoman Lynette Stewart said issues that were commercially sensitive and "a little tense" would be resolved, but refused further comment.

"It is not an issue I intend to debate in the New Zealand Herald," she said.

The secrecy has left Northland MP John Carter asking the board to "come clean and tell the story" over why the taxpayer-funded facility is not being used.

"The public of Northland not only have a right, but should demand to know what has happened to it because it is their money, it is their services," he said.

"That is another 25 people in Northland who have not had their hips done because the funding is not there."

Mr Carter said if board members had changed their minds about using the building, they should say so. It was another example of the board's poor communication.

Mr Baker said the board had been holding meetings in private about the house, based on 1.4ha of land.

The trust unsuccessfully applied under the Official Information Act for the minutes of the board's secret meetings about Kingston House.

The purchase of the building from the hospice was made on the condition that it remain in the community, so it could not be sold to developers. But the trust could not gain grants to refurbish the building until it knew what the health board's plans were.

He said the trust was treating money poured into the building, which at present accommodates community services like Rape Crisis and the Cancer Society, as a donation.