Fresh doubts have been cast on the completion date of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital by the South Australian Opposition.
Review documents secured through the Freedom of Information Act predict an August 18 completion date for the new hospital rather than the July 3 date recently announced by the State Government.
The Government announced it had reached a $30 million settlement with the builder for the hospital to be completed in July 2016.
It will not official open to patients until after the flu season in November 2016, seven months after originally planned.
The independent review undertaken by Tracy Brunstrom & Hammond (TBH) was delivered to the Government one year ago.
Opposition Health spokesperson Stephen Wade said the Government sat on the independent advice for months until finally admitting in the mid-year budget review that the hospital would be delayed.
He questioned the discrepancy between the finish date contained in the review and the Government’s public statement about the completion.
“I’m not at all confident this project will be completed on time,” Mr Wade said.
“We’ve seen so much wriggle room left in the statements that have been put on the table.
“We can’t rely on the Government to be full and frank.”
The Government has been contacted for a comment.
Mr Wade said the Government had not been upfront about the hospital delay.
“[Health] Minister Snelling and the Government spent 18 months pouring cold water on the idea the hospital would be delayed. They consistently said they were relying on what the builder said,” he said.
The TBH review was commissioned to independently assess the achievability and likely completion dates for the hospital.
It concluded the completion date remained four months behind schedule and critical hospital works “continue to slip, being offset by program changes to durations and logic”.
“If anything, the continued slippages and increased concurrency of works puts increased doubt on achieving the current target dates,” the review stated.
“Facade and roughout are the critical trades and their productivities continue to be a concern.”
The FOI request was submitted in July before the Government revealed the official delayed opening date.
Some documents sought were refused because a clause in the agreement between the Government and builder states confidential information about the hospital cannot be published.