Northern Beaches Hospital private services in doubt as NSW government takes control
Associate Professor Vijay Solanki, director of cardiac services at the hospital, said private billing allowed the hospital to develop a 24-hour heart attack service for both public and private patients. The angiogram service may also be unsustainable without the volume of elective angiograms funded by private health insurance, he said.
Solanki told the inquiry that many staff were considering leaving and a doctor from the cath laboratory team resigned “due to uncertainty about the future of the hospital”.
Healthscope chief executive Tino La Spina during budget forecasts earlier this year. Credit: Edwina Pickle
Data from industry group Private Health Australia shows 79 per cent of the population on the northern beaches, more than 211,000 people, have private health insurance, significantly higher than 55 per cent nationally.
Healthscope chief executive Tino La Spina defended the hospital’s positive performance “under intense public scrutiny” on key metrics and staff continuing to serve the community.
“Our people were spat on, shouted at, their tires were slashed, [and] It has been unfairly maligned,” he told the inquiry. “The hospital is held to a higher standard than any other hospital in NSW.”
AMA NSW president Dr. Kathryn Austin said any suggestion that the hospital would become a fully public enterprise was a “slap in the face” to a community that had been promised top-notch private healthcare for 20 years.
“This is also a betrayal of the more than 200 senior Northern Beaches Hospital doctors who recently voted unanimously to retain private healthcare,” Austin said, referring to a recent Medical Staff Council meeting.
Austin said it was disrespectful for staff not to be informed about the hospital’s future and to rely on gossip and rumors.
“This is not a step forward,” he said. “The voices of the community and dedicated clinicians were trampled, and both deserved better.”
President of the Australian Salaried Paramedics Federation (NSW), Dr. Nicholas Spooner said the move to public control would be critical to solving long-standing problems of understaffing, overwork and burnout.
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“NSW people expect their government to lead, invest and deliver on public health, not outsource it to private providers who are only interested in profit,” Spooner said.
Healthscope is responsible for providing services to public and private patients within the scope of the hospital model. The company went into receivership in May amid talks to hand back the Northern Beaches Hospital and sell 37 other Australian hospitals.
In April, a NSW auditor general’s report found the hospital failed to act on warnings about risks to patient safety and outcomes, while a separate independent investigation found staff had “high awareness” of the hospital’s contract with the government, which could create tensions between financial obligations and clinical priorities.
The NSW and federal governments have ruled out any bailout for Canadian-American investment company Brookfield, which owns Healthscope and owes $1.6 billion to lenders. Health Minister Ryan Park said the hospital would not lose any of its 488 beds or its status as a level five tertiary hospital.
The prime minister’s office declined to comment.
with Alexandra Smith
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