[Lightspeed]

'An obscene waste of money' - Orion boss criticises govt's Covid-19 vaccination IT delivery

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told Checkpoint that was a "herculean task", and added that an initial vaccination register was available for use in December if it had been needed.

McCrae said that was not a fair assessment.

"The director-general is wrong. A 'herculean' project is something over $100 million. It's automating an entire health economy when you're looking after 10-40 million patients.

"These projects here are one to three percent of that size are relatively small. The only thing herculean about this project is the price tag."

McCrae said Orion would have quoted between $1 million and $3 million, depending on features of the system.

"A significantly lower sum, and I believe other vendors would have quoted in that area.

"We would have very likely lost to others, and that's absolutely fine, but $38 million for immunisation, $55 million for breast [cancer] screening. It just doesn't make sense."