The interim head of Sydney's beleaguered Northern Beaches Hospital has apologised for the public-private facility's early administrative and healthcare failures but insists the facility did not open prematurely.
A NSW upper house inquiry into the Frenchs Forest hospital kicked off on Monday after the opposition successfully sought the probe in June, claiming it had "lurched from crisis to crisis" since its 2018 opening.
The inquiry will examine the running of the hospital including standards of service, staffing and public-private partnership arrangements in healthcare.
Reports have pointed to a litany of problems at the $600 million facility, such as a lack of basic medical supplies and staffing issues.
Six senior appointees, including the chief of medicine, medical director and director of nursing, resigned soon after launch.
Interim hospital chief executive Richard Royle said private contractor Healthscope had received the green light to open from independent certifiers - but failed in its recruitment and IT systems.
"The fact the problems encountered in the early days of the hospital's operation were more significant than should've been the case is a failure on the part of our company and for that, we apologise," Mr Royle told the inquiry.
Healthscope admitted they had been penalised as a result of missing key performance indicators at the hospital, with the health department's 20-year contract stipulating cost "abatements" in the case of poor service.
They said 17 patients had spent more than 24 hours in the emergency department instead of being admitted to a ward or discharged. At least two patients had suffered "sentinel events", or serious and preventable medical errors.
The operators rebuffed suggestions patients were pressured to elect private hospital care over public care.
"We take those claims very seriously and we'll review our literature we provide patients," Healthscope state manager Stephen Gameren said.
NSW Health officials earlier on Monday rejected shadow treasurer Walt Secord's assertion the hospital was guilty of "healthcare apartheid" by providing better care to private patients than those in the public system.
Deputy secretary Nigel Lyons said the hospital was obliged to provide equal public-private care.
"The contractor is obligated to provide public care at the same level as we'd expect for any public hospital in NSW," Dr Lyons said.
"We have very rigorous processes for assessing performance of the operator and we've taken a position that, yes, there will be some issues with commissioning a new hospital, and those emerged, but also we've worked very closely with the operator to ensure those were addressed."
Deborah Willcox, the Northern Sydney Local Health District chief executive, told the inquiry the hospital had improved since opening in October 2018, having replaced Manly and Mona Vale hospitals.
She also brushed off suggestions of sub-par public care and allegations in a Health Services Union submission that private patients were receiving hot breakfasts while public patients received cold breakfasts.
Mr Gameren said public patients could receive hot breakfasts on request.
The head of the union representing NSW doctors has previously claimed the hospital was not safe for patients and junior doctors when it first opened while Premier Gladys Berejiklian also admitted to "teething problems".
Australian Associated Press
