Northern Beaches Hospital official opening marred by controversy
Health Minister Brad Hazzard has told the privately run Northern Beaches Hospital to get its house in order fast, as the official opening was marred by threats of industrial action by doctors and protesters.
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The Northern Beaches Hospital officially opened today amid continuing controversy over a lack of staff and drugs and threats of industrial action by junior doctors.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the peninsula’s Liberal elite — with the exception of MP Rob Stokes — were there to see the official ribbon cutting ceremony, which was disrupted at the end by a protester.
The hospital medical director Louise Messara was a noticeable absence, as she was in talks with Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation ASMOF, the union representing junior doctors and threatening to strike over claims staff shortages are compromising patient safety.
Since the $600m hospital, run by private operator Healthscope, opened on October 30 there have been a number of concerns from staff and patients about staffing problems and a shortage of drug and medical supplies including painkillers, antihistamine, adrenaline, and bandages, as well as long waiting times in the Emergency Department.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said he had given Healthscope a deadline of two or three weeks to get its house in order.
He told the Manly Daily he called a meeting with management last week and said they had to employ more supply officers to get the shelves fully stocked and staff in place.
He said although it was privately run, Healthscope had a contract with NSW Health and like any other public hospital was answerable to him.
Northern Beaches Hospital CEO Deborah Latta opened the proceedings by acknowledging there had been problems and apologising to patients.
“We do acknowledge and are working through areas to be addressed,” she said.
“Many of which have been and others are in the progress of.
“We are entirely focused on remedying the process issues which are causing staff and patient frustrations.
“We apologise for the inconvenience to our community and while we work to ensure a more streamline back of house process our priority remains patient care.”
Afterwards the Premier Berejiklian also answered questions about the performance of the hospital on why operations had been cancelled, saying the surgical teams had already performed 600 operations to date, which was an incredible number.
Dr Stuart Pincott confirmed in 20 days there had been eight operations cancelled because it wasn’t safe to do them.
“The ramp up in the roll out and the presentations were enormous and we couldn’t do it safely in those first few days,” he said.
“Cancellations are not uncommon in the public hospital system, these cancellations were dealt with case-by-case on the clinical need priority, all those cases were rebooked, rescheduled and most of them have already been completed.”
Dr Pincott also answered question around the concerns from junior doctors.
He said the union had concerns that were valid, but the problems were identified early on and were dealt with.
“The wellbeing and safety of the patients and junior doctors has never been compromised and we take their contribution to health care seriously,” he said.
Ms Latta revealed that there had been 2700 presentations in the Emergency Department in the first three weeks, 1800 admissions to hospitals, 600 elective and emergency operations, 80 babies born and 100 outpatients.
Healthscope had previously admitted it had not expected such a high number of sick people to come through the doors so early on.
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