The chief executives of Australia’s biggest healthcare companies sat down with the Albanese government last week to report on the crisis facing the country’s private hospitals. The diagnosis was grim.

Hospital operators say the $22 billion sector is at a crunch point. Soaring costs and wages, and tanking patient numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic, mean many of the country’s 650 private hospitals are losing money. Maternity is the hardest hit due to high specialist fees and out-of-pocket costs. More closures are looming.