The NSW Nurses & Midwives Association announced last week that it is “resolved to take all necessary actions to conduct a campaign against the privatisation of NSW public hospitals and services.” Brett Holmes, the general secretary of the N&MA announced the union’s intent to spend up to $1 million to achieve its goals.
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The NSW health minister, Jillian Skinner recently unveiled plans to privatise five NSW hospitals. Maitland, Wyong, Goulburn, Shellharbour and Bowral hospital will all be built and operated privately. Skinner announced on 15 September that she will be seeking expressions of interest from prospective private operators to run the hospitals.
"These communities have been waiting for decades," she said. "Partnering with non-government hospital operators will allow us to maintain quality healthcare while delivering the best value."
The state government has been accused of implementing these changes insidiously, without consultation with the public or health care sector.
Although the Liberal party has traditionally subscribed to an ideology whereby private naturally means more efficient and cost effective, history suggests the contrary. After cleaning and portering services (moving patients around) were outsourced at Sydney's Royal North Shore hospital, reports emerged that patient care was subsequently compromised. Infectious patients were reportedly left in corridors for hours because there were no clean rooms available, and resource restraints meant that incontinent patients were left unattended for considerable lengths of time.
The outsourcing of the Port Macquarie base hospital also proved fiscally disastrous, with the auditor general famously concluding that the project towards privatisation has resulted in the state government "paying for the hospital twice and then giving it away”.
In their report evaluating the effects of hospital privatisation the McKell Institute states that, “the assumption that the private sector can deliver cost savings and an increase in service performance, regardless of the specificities of the project, have often resulted in an increased cost to government and a drop in service quality for patients.”
In a statement released last week The NSW Nurses & Midwives Association stated that, “this is a step towards the Americanisation of our health system and a way for the government to distance itself from its responsibility to deliver a public health system by and for the people. The community deserves to have a say in how their public hospitals are run and we will continue this campaign with their support.”
