A NSW Government report into the privatised Northern Beaches Hospital has confirmed what many suspected, a conflict of interest in privatising essential service monopolies, particularly in public health.
MWM first investigated the financial shenanigans surrounding the NBH 10 years ago. It was privatised and ended up in the hands of financial engineers Brookfield, specifically a secretive entity in the Cayman Islands. Due to profit concerns, Brookfield tried to hand back the unprofitable public hospital and keep the private three years ago. The Hospital returned to public hands in April this year.
Among the findings of the report – “The safety and quality of health services provided by Northern Beaches Hospital”:
The Committee found that many of the challenges experienced at the Hospital were not isolated operational failures, but reflected structural tensions created by a rigid public private partnership model that sought to deliver complex acute public healthcare through constrained funding arrangements, extensive risk transfer and insufficient integration with the broader NSW Health system. While the Hospital frequently performed well against published quantitative measures, those measures did not adequately capture the reality often experienced by staff and patients at the Hospital.
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Open in new tab Profits v Patients: privatisation of public hospitals does not work