Health Minister Simeon Brown bumps pothole up the waiting list at Auckland hospital

The pothole at the entrance to Greenlane Hospital.

• Simeon Brown’s $4 billion plan to fix potholes hasn’t addressed a large pothole at Auckland’s Greenlane Hospital entrance.
• Patients have highlighted the issue, with one posting a photo online.
• Brown said Health NZ made a temporary repair and plans more extensive renovations in a month.

Simeon Brown’s war on the country’s potholes has followed him from the transport to the health portfolio.

The $4 billion Brown set aside to fix potholes over the next three years has not remedied a large pothole at the main entrance to Auckland’s Greenlane Hospital.

A regular hospital visitor, Jason Oxenham, said there was no way to avoid the “moon crater”.

“It’s a big jolt. I wonder what it’s like for people with back pain and other pains. It has been like this for months. It’s crazy.”

Mathew Dearnaley, who posted a photo of the pothole and a single orange road cone on social media, said: “Here was I, thinking our new Minister of Health would at least know how to fix the odd pothole”.

Simeon Brown and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon have made a big deal of fixing potholes. Photo / Alex Burton

Another person commented: “Pothole joins the health waiting list for remedial surgery”.

Brown said potholes were a problem for motorists on our roads and in car parks.

“I am advised that Health NZ has made a temporary repair today and is planning on more extensive renovations in about a month’s time,” he said.

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