Joe’s mother, Elouise Massa, said she had not been aware of Healthscope’s 2023 offers until Thursday.
The audit says that, when Healthscope made the two offers, it raised concerns about the long-term viability of the hospital, citing insufficient funding, a lack of integration into the wider health network and “strained stakeholder relationships”.
Elouise Massa said she would seek answers from the government about what actions it had taken to address these concerns.
“Would Joe be alive had the government taken a more active role? I am not sure of the answers. However, these are questions we will be asking of the government,” she said on Thursday morning.
After speaking with Park and Premier Chris Minns on Thursday afternoon, Massa said she was confident that “meaningful change is on the way”.
Park on Thursday said he did not believe Joe’s life would have been saved if the government had stepped in. “I don’t want to make that type of link,” he said.
He said the government rejected the 2023 offers because it would have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey described them as an attempt by Healthscope’s owner Brookfield “to get a big cheque on the way out”.
“What Healthscope was doing was trying to get us to buy them out at a premium,” Mookhey said.
The auditor-general stopped short of recommending that the government buy back the hospital but he said there was a risk the state might need to assume responsibility for public services earlier than the expected end date of 2038.
Park said the government would accept the auditor-general’s recommendations in full.
These included concerning results for some hospital-acquired complications, elevated rates of falls, serious perineal lacerations (tears) and birth trauma.
Loading
The audit said Healthscope’s recent financial challenges, which have prompted its owners Brookfield to seek to sell the business it bought for more than $4 billion in 2019, were “an ongoing risk for NSW Health to manage”.
A Healthscope spokesman said the audit was further proof the partnership was “severely challenged, and no longer compatible with the NSW government’s policy objectives”.
The company was addressing the issues highlighted by the audit, he said.
Healthscope won the $2.14 billion contract to build and operate the hospital for 20 years under a public-private partnership signed by the former Coalition government.
“The whole premise of the public-private model was to deliver the same quality service as
the public system for less money,” said Michael Regan, the independent local MP for Wakehurst who initiated the audit. “The results are in. This experiment has failed.”
Opposition health spokeswoman Kellie Sloane said the Coalition signed the contract in 2014 “with the best of intentions to produce world-class healthcare for the northern beaches”.
“To a large extent, it has done that. But what this report has done is it has revealed both the areas where the hospital did well [and] where there were failures,” Sloane said. “Those failures should never happen again.”
Joe Massa’s death in September led the government to outlaw future public-private partnerships under legislation dubbed “Joe’s Law”, and is now the subject of a coronial inquiry.
A parliamentary inquiry will further examine the safety and quality of services at the hospital. Public submissions close next month.
In February, Leah Pitman and Dustin Atkinson lost their newborn Harper after Pitman suffered a placental abruption during labour at the hospital. An obstetrician called for an emergency caesarean but this was not performed, and the baby was delivered vaginally.
The hospital’s operating theatres operate under an on-call arrangement from Friday to Sunday, during which time surgeons and theatre staff must be within half an hour of the hospital. Pitman went into labour on a Saturday.
Healthscope has launched an investigation into the tragedy. The couple told ABC TV’s 7.30 program on Wednesday that, in a meeting with senior staff, they were told it was not “economically” feasible to run a 24/7 theatre.
“If we drove half an hour down the street to Royal North Shore, Harper would be alive,” Dustin Atkinson told the ABC.
Healthscope expressed its “condolences to families involved with the recent instances of failure in patient care”.
Park on Thursday said the government’s review would examine the performance of the operating theatres, but it was rare for hospitals the size of Northern Beaches to have theatres running 24/7.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
