‘Go out and build’: Generous couple fund Wellington Charity Hospital

Thursday, 20 March 2025

Sir Mark Dunajtschik and Dorothy Spotswood are going to pay for the base build of the capital’s new charity hospital.

The powerhouse philanthropists behind the $100 million children’s hospital at Wellington Hospital, Sir Mark Dunajtschik and Dorothy Spotswood, will pay to get the capital’s new charity hospital built.

After four years and several setbacks, the pair have stepped in to fully fund the base build of the Wellington Charity Hospital, which is planned to service unmet healthcare needs in Wellington, Kāpiti and Wairarapa.

After all the work the charity’s trust - “the ones we call the movers and shakers in Wellington” - put into getting the project off the ground, Spotswood said she felt they deserved to see it come to life.

Wellington philanthropists Mark Dunajtschik and Dorothy Spotswood officially hand over the new Wellington Children's Hospital building to Capital & Coast District Health Board on March 31.

“After all their work, they didn’t want to see it collapse, and now they are so enthusiastic about it, that they finally, after all these years, are able to go out and build.”

Dunajtschik, 89, and Spotswood, 87, announced their generous plan the night the two were honoured with a major award: the Fisher Funds New Zealand Legacy Award Te Pou Tūroa.

It is for individuals - or, in this case, couples - who have contributed remarkably to Aotearoa over their lifetime and perhaps even helped define New Zealand’s identity.

It’s the newest of the suite of Kiwibank New Zealand of the Year Awards. Its inaugural winner in 2024 was Sir Wayne Smith, legendary All Blacks and Black Ferns coach.

“I am a bit astounded,” Spotswood said.

Dorothy Spotswood and Sir Mark Dunajtschik have been honoured with the Fisher Funds New Zealand Legacy Award Te Pou Tūroa.

“We do all this donating and charity work because we want to do it, and we enjoy to do it, and we don’t look to seek recognition for it.”

Spotswood and Dunajtschik have a simple formula for how they decide what to fund. They want to support people born with physical or mental disabilities and they want to be able to see a project through as best as possible.

“We think, by doing things ourselves, as far as we can of course, we get more bang for our buck - simple as that,” said Dunajtschik, who spent his career in building and development.

So it was only natural the two said yes when the Wellington Charity Hospital team, which includes former Wellington mayor Dame Kerry Prendergast, approached them just last week to ask if they would help.

“Dame Kerry Prendergast is a very, very hard-working person for the community, organising and arranging on many committees,” Spotswood said.

Architecural drawings of the proposed charity hospital at 23 Adelaide Rd, before the site was bought by Waka Kotahi.

“I trust her no end as far as doing the best. I’ve got faith in her.”

In October 2023, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi confirmed it had bought the site on Adelaide Rd the hospital had been planning to buy for the three-storey hospital He Ringa Āwhina, saying it was sold in a voluntary deal.

Wellington Regional Hospital Charitable Trust Chair Dr Graham Sharpe said the new hospital still has no home to announce, but there is a name: the Dorothy Spotswood Charity Hospital.

“Mark really pushed me into it,” Spotswood admitted.

“I didn’t push you,” Dunajtschik interrupted. “I coerced you.”

Still laughing together after decades in partnership and business together.

Finally, Sharpe says, the trust can turn “ambition into reality”, treating 1800 people a year with day surgeries for people who don’t qualify for public healthcare, but can’t afford to go private either.

Dunajtschik and Spotswood’s donation comes after the couple spent $53m on Te Wao Nui, Wellington Children’s Hospital in 2017, which in 2023 won a Property Industry Award for its innovative and effective design.

They have also spent several million dollars supporting Hōpeha, an organisation providing individualised support to people with intellectual disabilities, and committed $50m to the building of a dedicated mental health centre at Hutt Hospital, which is due to be finished by late 2027.

Their efforts go back decades: like establishing the Life Flight Trust in 1975 and funding it for a decade until it could be commercially sponsored.

But it’s not just donations, the pair muck in and work, too. Even for the Children’s Hospital: one night Dunajtschik fetched Spotswood from the airport around midnight, and took her straight to the hospital building site instead of going home.

“They had just poured the first lot of concrete, so he picked me up and said ‘we’ve got to go up and make sure the concrete’s been watered’,” Spotswood laughed.

“And it hadn’t been. So I had to get off my high heels and put on a pair of gumboots while we watered all the concrete for the base of the hospital. We’d just finished when the bloke who was supposed to do it arrived, and he thanked us for doing it and went home!