‘No impact’ on Northern Beaches Hospital
The operator of Northern Beaches Hospital, Healthscope Newco, has entered into receivership, the company announced on 27 May, and a sale process has started for the Australian health group. There is no plan to close hospitals or undertake redundancies, and it is ‘business as usual’ at the company’s 37 hospitals, including Northern Beaches, with ‘no impact on staff, doctors and patient care,’ Healthscope CEO Tino Lo Spina said.
McGrathNicol has been appointed as receivers and managers of ANZ Hospitals
and Healthscope Newco, as lenders attempt to recoup $1.5 billion.
Commonwealth Bank has provided $100 million to assist in the sale process. “This is in addition to Healthscope’s current cash balance of $110 million, and substantial
additional asset backing across the group,” Healthscope said.
Healthscope, owned by Canadian private equity outfit Brookfield, is in ‘productive and constructive’ discussions with the NSW Government to hand back the public side of the hospital, Mr Lo Spina said on Sydney 702 on 27 May.
However, Wakehurst Independent MP Michael Regan is calling on the government to also put the private side of the hospital into public hands.
“This type of ongoing volatility and uncertainty demonstrates why it is completely inappropriate to have private equity running our local public hospital,” Mr Regan said.
“Northern Beaches Hospital is already understaffed and under-resourced. I dread that this development will mean even more focus on the bottom line, instead of where it should be – on staff and patients.
“I say to the government, loud and clear: step up and urgently end this diabolical contract.”
Mr Regan has reassured the community that the NSW Government was monitoring the situation closely and frontline health services – including emergency, maternity and surgery – at Northern Beaches Hospital would remain operational regardless of who was running the company.
The news comes after NSW Health Minister Ryan Park told a packed forum on 14 May at Dee Why RSL that the public private partnership had ‘detrimental outcomes’ and was a model that did not work. The government banned private public partnerships earlier this year for any future contracts in acute hospitals. Safety would be prioritised, the minister said, and nurse-to-patient ratios enforced. The timeline for the handover of the public side of the hospital was uncertain, but the government was ‘working around the clock’ to make it happen.