Middlemore Hospital was warned about leaks and mould in 2010 - report

Repairs to leaking buildings at Middlemore Hospital will cost at least $27.5 million.

Middlemore Hospital was apparently aware of leaks and mould in its buildings two years earlier than it has previously said.

A report by surveyors in 2010 found problems with the Scott Building's cladding, advanced rot and other damage caused by leaking, Radio NZ reported this morning.

The Counties Manukau District Health Board has said that it first became aware of weathertightness in some of Middlemore's buildings two years later, in 2012.

Greg Simpson, Middlemore's facilities manager at the time, said that he "quite clearly" recalled reporting the findings in the report to senior management and the board.

He asked for a more comprehensive report and funding for urgent repairs.

"I expected to get funding for what I would call fundamental failures... the failure of that cladding was fundamental. We never got that sort of funding," he told Radio NZ.

"Clinical priorities took precedence. At the time they were between a rock and a hard place - they still are."

It was not until 2012, when a large cladding panel fell off the Scott Building, that a more comprehensive report was ordered.

The DHB's acting chief executive, Dr Gloria Johnson, said she was not aware of the 2010 report, by Dalton surveyors, when she said in March that officials were first alerted to the weathertightness problems in 2012.

The Government recently signed off on an additional $11.5 million for repairs to the Scott Building, taking the total for the project to $27.5m.