Green Left Australia:
New South Wales Coalition and Labor governments have, for decades, allowed healthcare to become a profit-seeking industry. But as Healthcope, which operates the Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH), goes into receivership, they must rethink the public-private partnership model.
Healthscope, Australia’s second-biggest privately owned hospital operator, is now looking for a buyer...
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said Labor does not support public private partnerships being “imposed on the state’s acute hospitals”, but has not agreed to purchase NBH.
Federal health minister Mark Butler told the ABC on May 26 that the government would not bail out Healthscope.
The NSWNMA and local communities ran successful campaigns to defeat plans to privatise hospitals at Maitland, Wyong, Shellharbour, Bowral and Goulburn. The privatisation of NBH was the NSW Coalition’s last test case.
Independent Pittwater MP Jacqui Scruby wants Labor to “seize this opportunity to buy not just the public beds, but the entire [NBH]”.