PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY CONDEMNS GOVERNMENT OVER NOTHERN BEACHES HOSPITAL PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP
The NSW Labor Opposition has urged the Government to immediately accept recommendations of a damning Parliamentary Inquiry into the Northern Beaches Hospital.

The report tabled in the Legislative Council this morning found the premature opening of the hospital was "inexcusable", failings in transparency, an erosion of public trust and a lack of staff support and essential resources.

The Committee, including Coalition, Labor and Cross-Bench members, has recommended the NSW Government not enter into any public private partnerships for future public hospitals.

The report also recommended ensuring the same standards of care between public and private patients, significantly enhancing transparency and keeping the sites of Mona Vale and Manly Hospitals in public hands for health services. 

NSW Labor Leader Jodi McKay and Labor Shadow Minister for Health Ryan Park welcomed the report's findings and urged the Berejiklian Government to act quickly to adopt the cross-party committee's findings.

Ms McKay said:"The Government's hospital privatisation experiment has failed. The number of grave errors are an absolute debacle and as the Committee has rightly found the situation is inexcusable"

"This damning report has recommended that no further hospital privatisations go ahead. Gladys Berejiklian and the Liberals must commit to that today."

Evidence heard by the committee raised a litany of issues at the hospital including:

• A shortage of basic medical supplies such as slings, bandages, insulin, body bags, IVs, antibiotics and wheelchairs
• Priority given to private patients over public patients including on food, service, elective surgery and heart or brain surgery
• Patients waiting over 24 hours before receiving care and lengthy waits for patients arriving for surgery and for test results
• Inadequate staffing levels and poor support for junior doctors with one junior doctor responsible for 60 patients in the emergency department
• Mass resignations ranging from the Chief Executive Officer and Head of Medical Services through to clinicians and nurses
• Delays in paying staff and unreliable record and paging systems
• Grave surgery errors such as a patient having the wrong side of their colon removed and preventable intensive care unit errors

Labor Shadow Minister for Health Ryan Park said: "This Government is obsessed with privatisation and again it's the community paying the price with poor services and bad outcomes.

"Public patients have been treated as second-class citizens, the staff and community deserve better."

"What the Government has described as teething problems is in fact a complete and utter failure to provide quality healthcare.

"The Minister opposed this Inquiry from day one but I am urging him to act on its findings – including those from his Coalition colleagues."

Mr Park acknowledged the work of former Shadow Minister for Health Walt Secord and Committee Chair Greg Donnelly in shining a light on these critical issues.