Protest looms over Healthscope’s St Helen’s Private Hospital closure in Hobart

Concerned Tasmanians will flock to a rally in protest of the looming closure of a private hospital as fears grow about the future of the facility’s crucial mental health and mother and baby services. DETAILS >

Maddison Cutler is behind a petition calling for greater action to ensure no mental health services are lost following the closure of St Helen's Private Hospital in Hobart. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Disgruntled and concerned Tasmanians will flock to a rally in protest of the looming closure of St Helen’s Private Hospital as fears grow about the future of the facility’s crucial mental health and mother and baby services.

The S.O.S. Save Our (Health) Services rally, organised by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) and the Health and Community Services Union (HACSU), will be held in the forecourt of the Executive Building on Murray St at midday on Tuesday.

The organisers are calling on the state government to guarantee that the 31 mental health beds and eight mother and baby beds at St Helen’s will not be lost, after private operator Healthscope announced it would be closing the hospital in June due to falling demand and the need for major capital works.

St Helen's Private Hospital, Hobart. Picture: Chris Kidd

Premier and Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff has announced that a three-bed mother and baby unit will be established at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) but union officials say this won’t come close to addressing the coming shortfall.

“The chief concern of ANMF and its members is the loss of services to mental health patients and women and children, not only through closure of the hospital but also the loss of skilled and experienced clinicians who have no options in terms of transferring to a like facility to continue delivering the same type of care and treatment,” ANMF Tasmanian branch secretary Emily Shepherd said.

Ms Shepherd urged the government to “ensure that there is continuity of service and treatment” upon the closure of St Helen’s.

Hobart councillor Ryan Posselt, who works as a paramedic, will attend the rally and speak about the positive impact the St Helen’s mental health services have had on frontline workers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I’ve been contacted by multiple emergency services workers who have accessed inpatient care at St Helen’s as a result of PTSD that they’ve acquired through the job,” he said.

“So this is … paramedics and police officers who have reached out to me and said, ‘I wouldn’t be here if St Helen’s hadn’t treated me. I’d be dead’.”

Hobart resident, Maddison Cutler, who started a petition to push the government to act on the closure of St Helen’s, will also address the rally.

“I’ve been inundated with questions about when the rally is. I’ve had people telling me that they’re going to organise carloads of people to come down from the East Coast,” she said.

HACSU assistant secretary Robbie Moore said if the services at St Helen’s were permanently lost “we are going to see deaths”.

“There’s already a really worrying wait time on mental health beds at the RHH,” he said. “Unless the Premier acts now it’s going to be a disaster.”

‘Terrified’: Why Hobart woman is fighting against St Helen’s closure

May 13: Maddison Cutler had been waiting months to receive mental health treatment when she received the shocking news that one of the only facilities in the state to offer the services she required was set to permanently close.

Ms Cutler said the announcement by Healthscope, the company that owns St Helen’s Private Hospital, “absolutely broke me”.

“The reality of living with a mental illness means there are good days and bad days, but for me, when the bad days come, they mean I’m fighting for my life,” she said.

“Mental illness is like any chronic illness – you need tools and treatments to help you live a better life. But the issue is access to these tools and treatments is severely limited compared to other types of illnesses.

“St Helen’s is one of the few places that provides these treatments and they’re about to be taken away from me.”

Maddison Cutler is behind a petition calling for greater action to ensure no mental health services are lost following the closure of St Helen's Private Hospital in Hobart. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Ms Cutler, who works as a marketing co-ordinator, said she had “finally” secured a place in a group therapy session offered at St Helen’s when she had “that hope of getting better crushed”.

“Now I’m terrified, I’m scared for my future and I don’t know how I’m going to access the treatment I desperately need. And I’m not the only one,” she said.

The 26-year-old has channelled her fear and anger into fighting for the mental health and mother and baby services at St Helen’s to be preserved, launching a petition to put pressure on the state government.

Ms Cutler wants Premier and Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff to guarantee that the 31 mental health beds at St Helen’s won’t be lost.

The government announced last week that it would open a three-bed mother and baby unit at the Royal Hobart Hospital before St Helen’s was set to close in late June.

Health and Community Services Union assistant secretary Robbie Moore said a rally was being organised on Tuesday, May 23 to call on the government to take over the 31 beds in the private hospital.

St Helen's Private Hospital, Hobart. Picture: Chris Kidd

“If [people] are not getting treatment, it’ll be dangerous, it’ll probably lead to deaths,” he said. “And we’ll see people just using the emergency department, which is already overstretched and at crisis point.”

A Healthscope spokesman said the company was “working closely” with the government to “ensure a smooth transition of mental health services when St Helen’s Private ceases operation”.

“We are continuing to work through with our people their redeployment options either at Hobart Private, or other Healthscope hospitals across the country,” he said.

“We have also had a number of positive conversations with the Tasmanian government regarding opportunities for St Helen’s staff to take on roles in the public mental health sector, if we are unable to redeploy them within Healthscope.”

Originally published as Protest looms over Healthscope’s St Helen’s Private Hospital closure in Hobart