Bitter pill for Crescent Capital Partners-owned Healthcare Australia after jab mix-up
We’ll give you one guess as to who the doctor who gave our Prime Minister Scott Morrison his COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday in a carefully stage-managed press event to launch the federal government’s ambitious vaccination program works for.
That’s right. Healthcare Australia.
That’s the same private equity-owned operator that is now in Health Minister Greg Hunt’s bad books after another HCA doctor on Wednesday gave two elderly aged-care residents in Queensland too much coronavirus vaccine and was later found to not have undergone requisite training.
Oh my.
But the Crescent Capital Partners-controlled health giant has assured Margin Call that ScoMo’s vaccinator, Jesse Li, who also jabbed our nation’s chief health officer Paul Kelly in front of the cameras on Sunday, most certainly did undertake all the required training to qualify Li to vaccinate.
Margin Call hears that the less-qualified doctor who was on the ground at St Vincent’s Care Services in Queensland was on his first vaccination shift for HCA.
The two elderly patients he gave too much vaccine to were the first, second and only patients he injected.
Still, there’s no getting around that the doctor didn’t do the training, despite that HCA told the government he had.
That meant Hunt was still gunning for HCA when he took to the microphone in Canberra at lunchtime to further admonish HCA boss Jason Cartwright, who by mid arvo had been stood down.
Hunt said HCA, which Margin Call this week revealed was owned by the Michael Alscher-led Crescent, had breached clinical standards and that it was an “error that should not have happened”.
“The company has had the book thrown at it,” Hunt declared, with HCA now facing “potential termination for any further significant breaches”.
Deputy chief medical officer Michael Kidd got in on the act, too. “HCA was clearly at fault here … the company did not meet the requirements of its contract with the Department of Health.”
To try and sort the mess out, Crescent partner and HCA chair Daren McKennay has been installed at HCA in what Hunt said was “an executive administration role”, senior management is being beefed up and former commonwealth head nurse Debra Thoms has been sent in to make sure no more mistakes are made.
Ouch.
Fearless ruling
Fed Square’s own Fearless Girl statue will continue to stand in Melbourne’s CBD, a symbol of gender equality … and local lawyer Maurice Blackburn’s own triumph over heavyweight US fund State Street.
In a turn of events the class action law firm couldn’t even make up, the Wall Street titan with $38.8 trillion of assets under administration and $3.5 trillion of assets under management on Thursday lost its bid to prove a trademark violation over the replica statue.
Judge Jonathan Beach found that the claim of copyright infringement failed, and that artist Kristen Visbal was well in her rights to reproduce the work for display in Australia, unveiled ahead of International Women’s Day in March 2019.
In his judgment, Justice Beach said any suggestion the move had tarnished or diluted State Street’s brand or reputation was “fanciful”, going on to strike out key components of the Boston-based firm’s argument and comparing the 1.27m-high bronze statue to Michaelangelo’s work at the Sistine Chapel.
“It is unlikely that most people viewing the image, other than possibly those viewing it in the chapel itself and/or those with a particular understanding of ecclesiastical law, would immediately associate the work with the commissioning pope,” he said, adding only a “very small wealthy few” would have known of the Australian arm of State Street in the first place.
The issue of any disclaimer to be displayed will be heard early next month, which could very well coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8.
No doubt a chance for Maurice Blackburn to roll out its usual motto — “we fight for fair”.
SBS head-hunting
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has had his fair share of the limelight in recent weeks as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in the nation’s battle over the payment for news content with Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.
But former Optus exec-turned career pollie Fletcher has another important decision just down the road — the appointment of a new director to the board of the George Savvides-chaired SBS.
Outgoing director, former Film Australia boss and ABC exec Daryl Karp, is set to exit the broadcaster’s board in the middle of the year after what will be a decade of service, and the call has just gone up from Fletcher to fill her seat.
The minister is being helped in the hunt by search firm Watermark Search International, which will draw up a short-list of three candidates that Fletcher will then choose from.
It’s more a love job than one a suitably qualified director might take to put food on the table, with the gig paying just $44,350 a year.
Watermark, in contrast, is doing better than that, appearing to be working under a contract of about 20 months worth almost $180,000.
Nice work if you can get it.
Airlines’ dogfight
Forget any global trade war, the latest ratcheting of tensions is within our own national airlines and the egos are proving just as large.
If relations between incumbents Qantas and Virgin, as well as upstart Rex, weren’t already fraught enough, Alan Joyce on Thursday turned it up a notch, drawing parallels between Rex and former US president Donald Trump.
In a briefing after handing down a $1.47bn loss, a more candid than usual Joyce described press releases from his regional competitor as “colourful”, noting that “I sometimes think they have Donald Trump writing for them, they’re very Trumpian in a lot of ways”. Surely enough to start a war right there.
He went on: “We get a good laugh out of them … we need amusement every now and again and I’m sure there’ll be another one coming from that operator.”
His comments come after Rex deputy chairman John Sharp on Monday called out the nation’s carrier as engaging in predatory conduct on a number of regional routes, and threatening to pull out of several routes as a consequence.
To that, Joyce just said it was a case of “the boy who cries wolf all the time” — he was certainly not pulling any punches.
Now, to be clear, Rex may have had a few issues with the press releases in question given the recent (and sudden) departure of communications and government relations head, former ABC journo Ben Worsley, after just four months.
He has since defected to the NSW Education Department — leaving a new comms officer to preside over the company’s corporate messaging as the countdown to their domestic market entry continues.
Perhaps they can take a cue from their so-called inspiration, “Make regional routes great again” does have a good ring.
More Coverage
Rick Leblanc Who? Richard White’s lacklustre nom de guerre
Richard White’s alter ego is more blancmange than Hollywood, court documents show.
ERA mining PM’s speeches for Jabiluka trouble
Cancelling the mining licence for ERA’s Jabiluka uranium mine should have been an easy win for Anthony Albanese’s government. But it might be shaping up as an own goal.