A patient diagnosed with a stroke waited more than four hours in an emergency department chair because of a lack of beds at Northern Beaches Hospital, in one of several alarming incidents reported to an independent audit of the public hospital’s performance under private operators.
In a scathing submission to the NSW auditor-general, dozens of doctors have blown the whistle on dangerously low staffing levels and chronic “bed block”, saying they are increasingly frustrated with the hospital’s performance under operator Healthscope and its owners, Canadian investment giant Brookfield.
Northern Beaches public hospital is operated by private company Healthscope. The arrangement is now the subject of an inquiry by the NSW audit office. Credit: Roger Stonehouse
The submission, lodged by the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation NSW, included feedback from about 30 Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) doctors, who reported that paramedics had been forced to offload frail, elderly patients from nursing homes into waiting room chairs because of bed block – where patients cannot be moved to a bed because the hospital is full.
In a particularly harrowing case, a stroke victim diagnosed with a CT scan waited more than four hours in emergency because there were no beds.
“Unable to rest in a bed, she left to sleep at home, returning the next day still symptomatic,” the submission read.
In a separate incident, an investigation found a patient developed sepsis and became critical overnight after being placed in a “fast-track” section of emergency with limited supervision, again because of an alleged lack of beds.
“I can confidently say NBH does not meet the standards of care one should expect from a public hospital in Sydney,” said one doctor. “They lack sufficient doctors and nurses and clearly prioritise profit over patient care and staff wellbeing.”
Spokespeople for Healthscope and the Northern Sydney Local Health District declined to comment on individual submissions to the audit.
“NBH rosters to NSW Health safe-working guidelines and actively works to minimise overtime and ensure leave provisions for doctors,” a Healthscope spokesman said.
Healthscope is contracted to run the public arm of the hospital until 2038 under a controversial 20-year deal signed with the former Coalition government.
Submissions to the audit closed last week. Auditor-general Bola Oyetunji has been tasked with determining whether the partnership is efficiently and effectively delivering public hospital services to the local community.
The audit will compare the hospital’s performance with similar-sized public hospitals in NSW, focusing particularly on emergency and surgery. It will also investigate whether NSW Health can effectively identify and monitor risks at NBH.
NBH medical staff council chair Keith Burgess said he did not believe the hospital attracted adequate resources compared to other hospitals in the district, including Royal North Shore and Hornsby.
“The people of the northern beaches deserve better,” Burgess said. “The hospital’s a good hospital, but it could be great.”
Independent Wakehurst MP Michael Regan said he had heard stories similar to – and worse than – those in the submission, noting NBH was the only NSW public hospital with a private operator.
“It’s hard not to feel there is a trade-off between profit and patient care,” he said.
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