Northern Beaches Hospital

[Black Orchid]

Staff at Sydney’s troubled Northern Beaches Hospital say they tried to raise concerns about dangerous cost-cutting for years before the horrific death of toddler Joe Massa, accusing private operator Healthscope of now having “blood on [its] hands”.

The NSW government is awaiting the outcome later this year of an Auditor General investigation into the Frenchs Forest hospital — widely considered a basket case by Northern Beaches residents — but Health Minister Ryan Park says “no one has to argue … this is not the best model of healthcare”.

Healthscope, Australia’s second largest private hospital operator, bid $2 billion in 2014 to build and operate Northern Beaches Hospital under a public-private partnership (PPP) until 2038. Northern Beaches Hospital opened in October 2018 and just months later, in May 2019, Healthscope was acquired by Canadian private equity giant Brookfield for $4.1 billion.

In September, 22-month-old Joe Massa died after what should have been a routine emergency department visit resulted in what his parents say was a preventable tragedy. Elouise and Danny Massa on Thursday called out systemic failures at the hospital, demanding urgent reform and accountability.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/healt ... 3edd4b8c67

This is just horrible and should never have happened. Poor darling little boy. I wouldn't have sat there that long without raising hell but who knows the full story.

There will always be accidents but countless people are coming forward about the horrors they have suffered here. We don't want to go down the American road of profit before patients.

Mona Vale Hospital used to be awful too but I don't know what it's like now.

[Bobby]

This is just horrible and should never have happened. Poor darling little boy. I wouldn't have sat there that long without raising hell but who knows the full story.

There will always be accidents but countless people are coming forward about the horrors they have suffered here. We don't want to go down the American road of profit before patients.

Mona Vale Hospital used to be awful too but I don't know what it's like now.

It may also explain the violence we see at hospitals directed towards staff.

[Jasin]

Ahh Healthscope.
That's who i worked under at the now destroyed and cursed Liverpool Private Hospital.
They are not frugal with money, they are tight arse rip off merchants, even with Staff.
So many stories I could tell.
Like the two psyche patients who committed suicide at Christmas, leaving letters behind at how they pay a lot of money for mental health care, but are looked after in a maternity ward by maternity staff because Healthscope and the General Manager cost cut on providing staff at that time of year for $$$.
It was in the newspaper The Australian at least. Healthscope quietly moved the GM to Nepean Private and then interstate with blood on her hands.
Of how they got rid of their ICU and if anything went dire with a patient, they just called and Ambulance for them to go to Liverpool Public. Quite a few deaths there too.
Of how an Indian in Stores managed to sell $2.5m in medical stuff on the black market over 5 years out the back door.
Explains why I had to duck over to the Public often to get stuff.

Really pathetic of how Private charge so much, but offer so little in return. It's not the Staff who must strike about this. It's the patients!
Just like the Private Education and Public situation.
Healthscope is a business for money, exploiting the Health industry and patients.

[Aquarius]

Staff at Sydney’s troubled Northern Beaches Hospital say they tried to raise concerns about dangerous cost-cutting for years before the horrific death of toddler Joe Massa, accusing private operator Healthscope of now having “blood on [its] hands”.

The NSW government is awaiting the outcome later this year of an Auditor General investigation into the Frenchs Forest hospital — widely considered a basket case by Northern Beaches residents — but Health Minister Ryan Park says “no one has to argue … this is not the best model of healthcare”.

Being a private Canadian owned hospital it's always been about profits. And that would be par for the course concerning many private hospitals in Australia. Most of the facilities I worked in were private and I do understand all about cost cutting, believe me!

Personally I believe that healthcare should be provided by the state however I pay private health insurance because I don't fully trust public.

Now whilst there might be concerns about cost cutting - it shouldn't affect the competence of the staff. In fact all the staff who supposedly "treated" this poor little toddler appear to be highly incompetent.

When a young child presents severely dehydrated through vomitting, has a pulse rate of 197!!, is floppy and going in and out of consciousness, ALARM BELLS SHOULD BE RINGING!!

The child should been assessed by the triage nurse as Category 2 and a rapid response. He should have been found a bed - there were several available but the mother was expected to nurse him for four hours while he was being (non) treated. He should have been put on an IV drip immediately. The trainee doctor was no better than useless. And not until he was going into cardiac arrest did they think, oh gee we better do something!

I am in shock, total shock that any mother should have to go through that agonising experience of watching her child die in her arms whilst the idiot "professionals" surrounding her basically ignored her pleas to put him on a drip. He had lost so much fluid - WTF WERE THEY THINKING???

Sorry, I just can't get my head around all of this. That child should be alive today but for the sheer incompetence and indifference of the staff who were there to care for him.

[Aquarius]

Ahh Healthscope.
That's who i worked under at the now destroyed and cursed Liverpool Private Hospital.
They are not frugal with money, they are tight arse rip off merchants, even with Staff.
So many stories I could tell.
Like the two psyche patients who committed suicide at Christmas, leaving letters behind at how they pay a lot of money for mental health care, but are looked after in a maternity ward by maternity staff because Healthscope and the General Manager cost cut on providing staff at that time of year for $$$.
It was in the newspaper The Australian at least. Healthscope quietly moved the GM to Nepean Private and then interstate with blood on her hands.
Of how they got rid of their ICU and if anything went dire with a patient, they just called and Ambulance for them to go to Liverpool Public. Quite a few deaths there too.
Of how an Indian in Stores managed to sell $2.5m in medical stuff on the black market over 5 years out the back door.
Explains why I had to duck over to the Public often to get stuff.

Really pathetic of how Private charge so much, but offer so little in return. It's not the Staff who must strike about this. It's the patients!
Just like the Private Education and Public situation.
Healthscope is a business for money, exploiting the Health industry and patients.

Healthscope have a bad reputation. They are there to make money! Just look at how much they charge for their parking stations! It costs an arm and a leg just to visit someone in hospital, let alone those who are getting treated there and have to maybe park for half the day or more!

Fortunately I am never sick and never have to be treated in a hospital. But if I did, it would probably be at Northern Beaches Hospital. Oh, if only we could get our old Manly Hospital back!

My DIL was in Nepean Private Hospital and she was transferred to Nepean Public to give birth.

I don't really have much experience of working in public hospitals - except for my training at Royal North Shore - and never wanted to work in any either. You have to work shifts and I will not do that. In private facilities you can negotiate your shifts and I have always worked afternoon shift - except when I worked in a hospice.

[Jasin]

The thing that annoyed me most about the Admin of the Private Hospital was that it was mostly ex Nurses. As soon as they became Admin, they became atrocious and incompetent. Admins that are specialist Admins are better. They enjoy what they chose in life. Ex Nurses seem to always hate it, don't have the personality for it and just do it for money.
Healthscope had Admins doing the grey bomber rounds in the carpark for revenue fines. Everything Admin did to extort money against patients and staff helped towards their Xmas bonus. As in with the GM, she was given holidays to Greece.

Private Hospital Liverpool put money into inefficient and un hygienic carpet. TVs in rooms, but only just 10 monitors, which made a constant shuffling of patients around in regards to those that needed to be on them. Of course others did as well, but of course, not enough monitors. Paintings on walls, alcohol on the menu (inhibits recovery) and basically offer the patients a cheap Hotel feeling, than a real Hospital.

Private Patients pay a lot to their Insurances as it is. Then Providers like Healthscope and Ramsey just to name two, really get in and rip patients off with their cut.
Private Patients need a Union version for Consumers to make sure they get what they pay for.
I have never done Private health care insurance.
I know a hell of a lot of big names in the industry that also work Public as well as Private. When getting a benign cancer removed from near my neck at Griffith Base Hospital. The Doctor/Surgeon knew me from Sydney. Although I was just an AiN. I worked nearly all departments in many Sydney Hospitals and for many of the best Drs, Surgeons and Profs. I was a unique asset they told me. Like a good luck charm I guess.
So I just do Public and know that I am well looked after and put at the head of the queue.
The only advantage I see of Private besides a free newspaper and better hotel food is that when you are old and need that hip or knee done. The wait isn't long. Private just conveyor belt those 'routine' ops with fast turnover for $$$. Nothing more.

Like I said. When something goes wrong from that routine presumption, they are rarely equipped for such emergencies and the in house Drs are usually cheap inexperienced ones.

Ohh. I never worked maternity. Too scary. Bad enough I had to clean the delivery suits when the Security Guard was on holidays. Yep, they got me to fill in as Security. Which basically means they had no real licensed Security at times.

[Aquarius]

A newborn baby died at Northern Beaches Hospital last weekend. The mother suffered a ruptured placenta.

The question is ... did she receive an emergency caesarian in time? Or is this another failure on the part of staff to not assess the problem in time to save the baby?


ps ... And now we hear that medical schools are accepting low grades students to boost 'diversity." This is happening in the UK. How long before it starts happening down here?

[Jasin]

They've been dumbing down Nursing since the Universities hijacked the training. From what I saw, 50% of Nursing students who came into the hospitals quit because they thought Nursing was all about just doing paperwork like at Uni. So many came in and refused to do toileting, bedwashes, showering and all the practical basics because it was beneath their Uni Academia egos.

[Aquarius]

Twice I've logged in and made a post here ... only to see it disappear the instant I hit Submit. And I was no longer signed in for some reason although Aquarius was showing up there in the top r/h corner. I will have to copy everything in future because it is too time wasting if it doesn't send.

[Aquarius]

They've been dumbing down Nursing since the Universities hijacked the training. From what I saw, 50% of Nursing students who came into the hospitals quit because they thought Nursing was all about just doing paperwork like at Uni. So many came in and refused to do toileting, bedwashes, showering and all the practical basics because it was beneath their Uni Academia egos.

I agree with you Jasin - nursing should be learnt on the job. Go back to the days of Matron! Matron's hawk eye never missed a trick and kept everyone on their toes! But then they shuffled Matron off to the office permanently where she emerged as the DON - virtually never to step foot in the wards again unless there was some catastrophic event.

Wonder what the DON was doing up at Northern Beaches Hospital? Just administrative paperwork as usual whilst all hell broke loose on the wards. The police are now involved and that will lead to a Coronial Enquiry - which is about time! My younger son's ex fiance is a nurse there but she works in Day Surgery.

I've worked with some fantastic RNs over the years. When I worked at War Vets we were in lockdown on several occasions, the RNs who were on my afternoon shift got stuck into the work along with everyone else - not that there were many hands on deck because staff were also contracting flu and gastro so couldn't come in and you can't get agency staff when you're in lockdown. That was the hardest work I have ever done because sometimes you had only half the normal staff on duty! The RN and I normally didn't shower or toilet - but if we were operating on a skeleton staff you just got stuck into it - there was no alternative.