Ramsay Health Care has called for health insurance funding to be automatically linked to cost inflation. The head of its Australian hospital operations said the company was prepared for a “fight” if insurers did not agree to do more to cover unexpected surges in staff wages.

Ramsay, the country’s largest private hospital group, also said it was not expecting the Albanese government to bail out struggling facilities or deliver any solutions to the sector’s crisis as it prepares to release the findings of a Department of Health review into the $22 billion sector.